RM 03-18-77 - Laserfiche WebLink

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6. NEW BUSINESS (Continued) a.l Continued: Mr. Crighton: (Continued) have no real ability to make an exact cost estimate. It is not like . . . say we have a contract for $250,000.00, where one would have similar firms -- like Sollitt and Hickey -- who are going to be bidding relatively closely. We have firms that vary in size from three contractors to as many as nine people on a staff. Actually, it is not a "Cost" estimate. We have no ability to do a bonafide cost estimate. One reason is that we do not have an engineer or an architect on staff. We don't have the ability to hire anybody, at least from the budget that has been approved by the Council this year for me. Also, we can't hire an outsider to do the estimating because of the,high cost there. It would run approximately $125.00 to $150.00 per estimate. Now if you figure we do over 300 estimates a year, that would run into some money. It would be a bit costly. We have gotten together with the City Engineer's office and Bill Slabaugh was very helpful in providing us with some insight into where we have made some possible errors in our cost esti- mate. One of his suggestions made this week was that we do a more extensive unit price contract, -or unit price bidding pro- cedure. The procedure we have now ... let "s take an item like roofing for instance ... we'll put down the number of square feet and the type of roofing to put in and the process. The con- tractor just gives us a bulk price for that amount, but he does not break it down any further in terms of the price per square foot and nails and everything else included-- the contingencies associated with that item of construction. What Bill's.suggestion was -- and it was a very good one -- was to have the contractors break down their unit prices even further. That way it will stabilize our prices and we'll be able to also improve our cost estimates so that we can get an average idea of what the overhead and administrative costs are for these contracts so we can, in the future, adjust our labor and materials estimate to be an actual cost estimate. Right now it is pretty much in the discussion stage. Mr. Crighton: I also talked with Dick Ball, who is our planning and support representative from HUD, and Mr. Ball contended that cost estimates are actually only accurate as far as new con- struction is concerned, and where we are getting into rehabili- tation activities it is a little more difficult. He also stated that many cities involved with community development are not even obtaining cost estimates, they are merely letting the contracts for bid and selecting the lowest bidder -- because of the difficulties they have had with existing housing estimation. -5-