Water District Board Revises Bid Deposit Requirement

Metropolitan Water Reclamation District (MWRD) Board Meeting   
​July 11, 2019       

The Board approved:

• Change to Bid Deposit Requirements:  At the request of Commissioner Garcia at the June 6 meeting, the staff did a survey of other governmental entities to find out for what types of contracts a deposit is required of bidders.  Overwhelmingly, the results were that deposits were generally only required for construction contracts.  The Board approved the new policy proposed by staff so that the MWRD will generally only require bid deposits for construction contracts.  Other types of contracts may require bid deposits on a case-by-case basis, as determined by the Director of Procurement and Materials Management.  This new policy should reduce the number of instances when a bid deposit is required, and the hope is that this will increase bidder participation and reduce costs to the MWRD by having a more competitive bid process. (Agenda Item 15, 19-0691) Commissioner Garcia requested that a similar survey be performed to find out the Minority, Women and Small Business owned business requirements (MBE, WBE, & SBE) that other government entities have.
• Award of Contract after Lowest Bid Struck:  Commissioner Garcia expressed concern that the staff was proposing to award a contract to a bidder with a bid of $452,000 after the lowest bid of $354,880 was struck because the bidder did not comply with the MBE, WBE, SBE requirements.  Commissioner Garcia, who is a great proponent of these requirements, asked whether any attempt had been made to work with this lowest bidder so it could comply.  Staff responded that they had had discussions, but the bidder said it could not.  When it came time to vote, Commissioner Garcia said he would vote to award the contract to the higher bidder after talking to Commissioner McGowan during a break. (Agenda  Item 44, 19-0683)
• Amended Evanston lease agreement to allow Evanston to have festivals and sell and consume alcoholic beverages.  This was deferred from the June 20 meeting.  Evanston agreed to do environmental assessment before the start of each season, and then to do walk-throughs before and after (with MWRD staff) each event to see if there are any car leakages.  If so, Evanston will do environmental testing and perform any necessary clean-up.  (Agenda Item 58-19-0600)
• Extend Space to Grow program with Chicago Public Schools to 2022:  This adds $1 million to the program and extends for 1 year; program to cover 30 schools.  Staff felt that prior concerns about school maintenance had been satisfied by schools proposing a new entity to do maintenance.  Commissioner Davis said he hopes this program can be expanded in the future to cover schools elsewhere in Cook County, too. (Agenda  Item 69, 19-0675)

Other discussions of interest:

• Commissioner McGowan asked that the staff look at incorporating into lease agreements penalties for non-compliance.  That way, the Board won’t have to deal with these breaches by others after the fact.
• The MWRD received $9.2 million during the first quarter from a declaration by the City of Chicago of surplus TIF funds.  Commissioner Shore asked that there be a discussion of how to treat such “bonus” funds (which are not budgeted); for example, Commissioner Shore suggested consideration might want to be given to using such funds for the Retirement Fund. (Agenda Item 53, 19-0669)
• The Executive Director of the MWRD Retirement Fund reported that the Fund was down at the end of 2018 because of the drop in the stock market in December.  However, it is up considerably this calendar year and he expects it to be up by 11.5% for the quarter just ending.  (Agenda Item 57, 19-0661)

Items deferred:

• Agenda Item 55, 19-0636,  Authority to transfer $60,000 from account for payment of real estate taxes to the account for payment for professional services, in this case to pay the Barnes & Thornburg law firm to represent the MWRD in seeking a variance from the new winter quality standard for chlorides in the Chicago Area Waterway System (CAWS), taking the lead role for the CAWS Chlorides Watershed Group.   Staff explained that because of the use of road salt in this area during winter, it is currently not possible to meet the new standard, which is why the variance is being sought for an initial 5-year period, even as efforts would continue to meet the standard in the future.  It appeared from the discussion that the main issue here is that the MWRD would be bearing the full cost of this effort initially, until such time as the CAWS Chlorides Watershed Group is finalized.  Commissioner Davis asked for the deferral so his questions could be answered.

Observer - Priscilla Mims                               Meeting Length: 1.5 hours