By REID TUCKER
The Paxton Town Council voted 4-0 after some discussion to award the Florida Rural Water Association (FRWA) with the contract for an upcoming water line upgrade project.
Discussion at the Feb. 17 meeting centered on whether the city should chose the FRWA, a not-for-profit company and the first pick after the request for proposal (RFP) process, over the runner-up, the for-profit Municipal Engineering Services. The Council held a special meeting earlier in the month to present its ranking of the parties applying for the project, and some people in attendance took issue after it shook out that the FRWA was going to win the top spot in the evaluation process.
Councilman Tommy Mathis put that question to City Attorney Clay Adkinson, who advised the board that there was no legal reason why the city should not go with the option that will save the taxpayers the most money. Furthermore, Adkinson said there is nothing illegal about allowing a non-profit or indeed any qualified firm to submit a proposal for a project, as it is city policy to accept applications from all parties. The proposal submitted by the FRWA – it being a non-profit company – does not list the amounts charged per hour for its various services in the attached fee schedule, but the city of Paxton has secured an estimated $780,000 in Rural Development grant money from the state.
The whole issue about fee schedules comes down to the difference between an RFP, which includes a submission of a possible bid on the project, and a request for qualifications (RFQ), which looks at whether the firm submitting an application meets the standards according to the nature of the project. In the latter case, the Council would review the applicants and rank them based solely on the merits of their comparative qualifications and later negotiate a price for their services.
Adkinson said engineering service fees are typically consistent across the board – thus, it generally works out that any firm turning in a low bid to secure work for less than the usual rate is doing so at their own disadvantage. He continued, saying the main critique is that non-profit companies can have a competitive advantage against their for-profit counterparts if they have the same qualifications to do the job. However, this issue at the heart of this case may best be resolved by a city policy change in the future, but for now there is no good legal reason not to accept the low bidder, he said.
Motions to accept the rankings and to award the project proposal to the FRWA both returned 4-0 votes in favor.
In other related news, the Council decided to switch up the composition of its RFP selection committee. Historically, the whole Council served as the committee to rank applicants, but Mathis suggested and later made a motion to change it to consist of the mayor, the two city clerks, the board member responsible for the associated city department and a member of the community. That last part is to foster more interest in city government from Paxton residents.
All committee decisions will still have to be brought before the council for final approval. This applies to RFPs and RFQs.
The Council also unanimously approved the its annual agreement with Paxton’s Dixie Youth Baseball league for use of the city’s sports complex in the upcoming season. The terms of the agreement are the same as they have been in past years, with only the renew-by dates changing. This season’s Dixie Youth Baseball opening day ceremonies will be held March 7 starting at 9 a.m.
