County targets lowball bids that wind up costing
Miami-Dade commissioners are taking aim at firms that habitually lowball county bids but, once they win contracts, secure changes that boost their prices far higher.
“Perhaps we should work on some policy in this board that talks about truth in bidding so that if you bid and if you purposely and intentionally underbid everybody else but we give it to you, if you’re coming back for us to add substantial money there has to be a greater weight for that,” said Commissioner Oliver Gilbert III.
That happens frequently. “They understand that once they start a project, it’s very difficult for us to back out of a project in the middle,” he said. “Once we’re on the hook we’re kind of on the hook.”
Commissioners focused on lowballed bids as they voted unanimously to rebid a contract that had a vast price discrepancy between the two bidders, although the rebidding was approved for another reason – after the contract was bid but before it was awarded, a state law change barred some terms of the contract.
The bids were for well monitoring for the South Dade Wastewater Treatment Plant. The original April 2024 bid solicitation had required wage and small business-related measures that were county policy at the time but were outlawed by the state as of July 1, which was before a contract was awarded. That sent the county back last week to seek bids once again.
In the process of that bidding approval, commissioners looked at the two bids from the first time around last year. An engineer had estimated that the work should cost the county $3.75 million, but one bid came in at almost $7.88 million while the other was for only $2.96 million.
It was that very low bid that set off commission alarms.
“The last thing we like to see is change orders on our agenda time after time after time,” said Commissioner Micky Steinberg. “They shouldn’t just bid low to hit us with change orders time after time.”
Selection committees picking contract winners should be raising questions early on about major disparities in bids before a contract award ever reaches the commission, said Commissioner Raquel Regalado. “That’s a red flag for all of us…. If you have a particular vendor that historically low bids and then has a certain number of change orders, obviously you have a pattern.”
“We’ve got to be clear on our rules when this happens,” said Commissioner Juan Carlos Bermudez. “I think there should be some consequences for those who may not be straightforward when they do some work for the county, which is a privilege because it’s million- and in some cases billion-dollar contracts.”
“There needs to be something that raises the bar for us adding money for those contracts,” Mr. Gilbert said. “If we determine that it’s part of a strategy where you see people completely underbidding everybody else, we ought to have some liquidated damages or something built in that allows us to access some remedies for the people, and I would like to work on that with you,” he told Mr. Gilbert as they agreed to form a committee for that purpose.
Said Mr. Bermudez, “I think that it’s needed.”
John Dohm
January 29, 2025 at 6:27 pm
Really? I mean, Really?
Look at real estate. That is easy to see. In fact, you can not only see it, you can walk on it, feel it, smell it and taste if if you wish.
Over 146 acres was just “given away” to the Mas family for pennies on the dollar as a long term lease. This is even after the first party defaulted on the lease.
The first give-away was to 13 Pista LLC for a Drivers Club, for the grand sum of $30-million overt thirty years. That is $1-million per year (in constant dollars, with no inflation adjustment). Now, doing the simple math, that is a lease rate of about $0.17 per square foot, per year (i.e., $7,400 per acre, per year. The outrage is that comparable property is currently leasing at $4-5 per square foot (i.e., well over $174,000 per acre, per year) – if you can even find it.
13 Pista defaulted on the lease, which is hard to believe or understand. More unbelievably they were allowed to sub-lease the property to the MasTec group.
Actually, the deeper you get into it, the worse it gets. You see, the property was to house the profound deformed “thalidomide” babies, born to mothers who unknowingly took a morning sickness pill in the 1950 that caused extreme birth defects. These poor souls were displaced for the rich kid’s racetrack that never was, and that has now been replaced by a public steal.
This is not a one-off. Michael Swerdlow and his group continue to offer deals to both Miami-Dade and Broward County that insult the taxpayers and good citizens of both counties. The list goes on and on.
To our elected officials: Please, I beseech you. If you do not understand a deal offered by a sophisticated developer, a software company, a contractor or anyone else, go to those who do understand and who care about our community. Industrial land is now going for in excess of $3-4 million per acre, and commercial land is even more. Don’t sell our inheritance.
Terry
January 30, 2025 at 7:35 am
It’s pretty simple …select on Qualifications and negotiate the price with the most qualified company .
Tired Taxpayer
February 2, 2025 at 6:48 am
The classic is the countywide signals upgrade. All the red flags should have gone up there. Siemens low balled that contract by $70 Million and at the end of the day, they couldn’t deliver the contract. Years went by and million of dollars spent before someone realized they couldn’t deliver. If you’re wondering where your money went, this is a great example.
https://www.miamitodaynews.com/2024/01/09/traffic-speed-up-contract-hits-slowdown-draws-warning/
Joe
February 4, 2025 at 8:54 pm
Perhaps the designers should be held accountable beyond the threshold of acceptable changes.