I wrote in another post about how the city spent $94,993.76 to replace 17,000 square feet of ceiling tile on the 10th floor of city hall last year. I sure hope they did not have to pay much for the warranty since the building might soon be torn down.
City staff claims that this amount was obtained through a competitive bid process. In other posts I have said that is not so.
Let’s look at the numbers.
Using Google one can find the exact tile they used for less than $10,000. Let’s add 20% for profit. We are now at $12,000.
The city evidently wanted new grid. I don’t know what was wrong with the old one, but let’s assume they need to tear down the old one and put in a new one.
In writing this I was going to go off and research the individual costs. Then an idea came to me. I wonder if the city has actually done other ceiling projects? Well as it turns out they have right here. Wander down to items 17, 18, and 19. To save you the arithmetic their first recommended bidder wants $1.33 per square foot to tear down and install acoustical ceilings (without materials).
This was a 2011 award the city made through another buy board (our local Region 19), just not the buy board that lets us send 4% of every purchase to Houston. By the way Region 19 rebid this in 2012 and the low bidder for tear down and install was at 70 cents (down from $1.33)–but we will use the 2011 numbers since they were available at the time.
We have:
- $12,000 for the ceiling tiles (available to you and me on the web, who knows what you could get them in volume for)
- $22,610 for labor to tear down the old grid and install the new one
- $10,000 for the materials in the ceiling grid
That brings us to $44,610 and even that number is just a price survey (not a competitive bid–which would be lower).
In the construction business they refer to site conditions–things that make the work more or less expensive. Could the extra $50,000 that we spent be because the workers had to work on the 10th floor of city hall? Did the contractor determine that it is a cesspool filled with snakes? I don’t know.
Humor aside, here we have a situation where we paid twice as much as we should have. Why would they use a buy board out of Houston when an El Paso buy board was half the price?
We deserve better!
elpasospeak 
Keep up the great work exposing this nonsense. It will have a cummulative effect as people surface to run for City Council next May. Keep the site open for debate prep for the potential candidates as the forums occur around town. This is an outstanding resource for that purpose and hopefully will resonate with the voters as they become aware of this fleecing of our tax dollars……the ball park not withstandng!
LikeLike
“Blind belief in authority is the greatest enemy of truth.”
LikeLike
Did the city zoo move their snake exhibit to the 10th floor of the city hall? Now we’re going to have Peta filing an injunction.
LikeLike