04-09-18 Public Works and Property Vacation

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CITY OF SOUTH BEND I OFFICE OF THE CLERK should know. We get a good job by way of the skills embedded in this,the apprenticeship training, workforce development,jobs and payroll. Those are all important. Safety is also embedded in this as well. I think that is important. I think the last point I would like to make is that whenever there is fraud, whether is it locally or federal or state, in terms of wages, and that's not addressed appropriately, that does affect every taxpayer in our local government. I think the verification a part of this is reasonable. I'm happy with the process and this is a practical approach. Dr. James Mueller, Executive Director of the Department of Community Investment with offices on the 14ffi floor of the County-City Building, stated, It was great collaboration. There was a lot of dialogue. I will say that any detractors from this final work product were things we had long hours of dialogue on. Particularly, we wanted to find out how small businesses can still work. We had a meaningful compromise here where it is not just projects over $150,000. If it is a project over $150,000 and a subcontracting piece of that is under $150,000, they are exempt. This is different from the other RBOs in other communities so that was a meaningful compromise. We talked a lot about the workforce developments and they actually line up a lot with the State requirements for large contracts. So this isn't anything that earth shattering or different than what goes on across the State.Indianapolis and other major cities have this.Indianapolis is the fastest growing economy in the State so this certainly isn't going to hurt our economy. Committee Chair Voorde asked, How was the $150,000 threshold determined? Eric Horvath, Director of Public Works with offices on the 131` floor, replied, There are a couple requirements involved such as bidding requirements. When we were looking at this Ordinance,we wanted the responsible piece to have additional submission requirements to make sure we are ensuring we have responsible bidders. At the same time,we are trying to find the sweet spot so we didn't make it overly onerous on any of the contractors with all the paperwork they have to do that is mandatory. We didn't want to create any additional barriers for folks. In particular, some of the small businesses don't have the ability to do all the bonding requirements and other things. Putting additional requirements on top of that would have prevented us from having small businesses bid on our projects. I don't know if there is any magic to that threshold but we felt like we typically have projects under that and then we have a handful above that and it seemed like a good place to put it. Committee Chair Voorde stated,I'm sure a bill this took this long took into consideration the effect this might have on MBEs and WBEs. Mr.Horvath replied,Absolutely and those typically go hand in hand with the SBEs.The Diversity Utilization Board is reconvening and we are looking at ways to continue supporting those enterprises to increase their participation with the City. When you get new folks to the table who haven't been through the process before, it is a difficult process. To make it as simple as possible is our goal. This is part of it. Committee Chair Voorde asked, Is this certification level a local qualification or a State-wide qualification? Mr. Horvath replied, The prequalification in this Ordinance would be part of the City's process. It is basically so that they don't have to submit it. If you submit bids on five (5) different jobs over a year,some of this information will be the same information and rather than having them resubmit EXCELLENCE I ACCOUNTABILITY I INNOVATION I INCLUSION I EMPOWERMENT 455 County-City Building I227W.Jefferson BvldI South Bend,Indiana 46601 p574.235.92211f574.235.9173ITTD574.235.55671www•southbendin.gov 3