Sparks fly over city job costing

A generous offer by the Sisters Kiwanis Club inadvertently touched off a simmering conflict over how the City of Sisters costs out its public works projects.

At their Thursday, October 28 pre-meeting workshop, the city council considered an offer by the Kiwanis Club to provide $22,469 in playground equipment for Cliff Clemens Park at the north end of town.

There was unanimous appreciation for the offer, but the question of installing the equipment picked a scab off a chronic sore spot.

Sisters Public Works Director Brad Grimm estimated a total of $5,700 for excavation and 86 man hours to install the equipment. Councilor Pat Thompson took exception to the assumption that the public works department should automatically do the work and that it can do it less expensively than a private sector contractor.

"This is a prime example of the double standard that I brought to the attention of staff, legal counsel and the mayor previously," Thompson said.

Thompson said the public works department's cost estimates for work do not properly account for actual costs, including equipment use, fuel expenditures for transport, etc. the way a private-sector contractor would.

"We have to have proper job costing from city staff, and I have yet to see it," Thompson said.

Thompson told Grimm that his depiction of low-cost city work for projects like the renovation and expansion of the Sisters Overnight Park camping facilities was "a slap in the face" to local contractors, making it appear

that their prospective bills amount to "stealing from the city."

Thompson's complaint hearkened back to a June 17, 2009 story in The Nugget on public works projects. That story noted that "Grimm said that keeping the work in-house allowed it to be done for under $60,000. He estimates that contracted costs would have run to about $250,000. He expects a two-year payback on the improvements."

(Revenues are, in fact, up significantly.)

Grimm defended the statement, noting that it reflected only the city's cash outlay.

Thompson feels that the city is not giving private-sector contractors a fair shot at work in a down economy, but he says his concern is not about creating work for private-sector firms with whom he does business himself.

"That's not what's going on," he told The Nugget. "When we have public employees competing for work with the private sector, they have to be competing on an even scale."

City Manager Eileen Stein told The Nugget that Thompson's concerns reflect conditions that are affecting cities across the state.

"(The question of) whether to have the public sector do the work is becoming more and more common," she said.

Stein said staff needs clear policy guidance from the council as to how that question should be addressed.

"We have our purchasing rules that the state puts out," she said. "What Pat's after is something more specific than that. It's a level of scrutiny - we've never been asked to go there before (in terms of a set policy).

"It's come up several times, and it would be good to have very specific direction from the council."

Thompson said criteria can be set.

"There needs to be a threshold at which we put (work) out to bid," he told The Nugget. "I think the council needs to discuss that." The tussle in the workshop will not likely impede the installation of the playground equipment.

Councilor Jerry Bogart assured Kiwanis that "everybody wants the playground equipment in the park."