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Capital projects an inside job
By Brandi Hart, McKinney Courier-Gazette
To ensure that city water, sewer, storm sewer and road-construction projects are more efficient, the city of McKinney is managing all of its capital improvement projects in-house rather than contracting them out to a third party manager.
That move should save the city $75,000 annually.
The city has outsourced the capital improvements projects to the private sector for at least the lpst six years,. However, that changed on Oct. 1, the first day of the current fiscal year. The CIP department oversees 65 active CIP projects, under the engineering department’s supervision.
“At a certain point, you realize there are advantages to moving the CIP programs in-house. The key for us is being responsible for the projects, that we are responsible to the public, and that we meet our projects on time and on budget. Staff reached a point where we thought it was probably better to work with the contractor than through a third-party manager,” Kessel said.
The city had a $390,000 contract with Chiang, Patel and Yerby (CP&Y) in the 2006-07 fiscal year. CP&Y was the only contractor the city used to manage the CIP programs in the 2006-07 fiscal year, said Rob Daake, CIP manager for the city.
“A consulting firm can have a very diverse staff of people who are very specialized. You can have someone who does nothing but design 200 powered pumping systems, and you keep that person busy because you have a whole bunch of clients. Whereas the city of McKinney, we may design one of those pumps every two years, and it would be irresponsible for us to have someone with that same experience on staff and they only work six months out of every two years,” Daake said.
“So, consulting firms serve a fantastic purpose in that regard because it’s very efficient because they get very high caliber, specialized people to work for them. Bringing this in-house with myself and my team; we have no other clients, and we are more accountable and responsible, and I think you’ll find a far better result,” Daake said.
The $75,000 in savings is a result of the city utilizing three staff members in the CIP program who have worked in other positions. They include Daake, who used to work as the development engineering manager. Joshua Cotton, who used to be the senior contracts engineer, is now the senior CIP engineer. Samantha Coxen is a CIP contracts specialist after serving as a planning technician. None of the three got a salary increase for their moves.
The city is advertising for a senior contracts engineer, Daake said.
The first project the CIP staff managed from start to finish was the infrastructure initiative project on Virginia Street, from Kentucky to Church streets. The project involved the installation of new water lines, sanitary sewer lines, storm sewer lines, new concrete, lighting, and landscaping along the street. The project also included reconstruction of the parking lot at the southeast corner of Virginia and Church streets.
Most of the city’s infrastructure initiative projects are in older areas of town, mostly east of U.S. 75, that have old, clay water and sewer lines. Some 56 percent of those projects completed during the past three fiscal years had a total of 427 construction days added to the original contract period, Daake said. Of those, 45 percent were related to weather, such as some form of precipitation and 55 percent were resulted from franchise-utility issues.
But now, the CIP staff decided to award contracts for all CIP projects, which are funded by city taxes and bonds, during the driest months of the year. Therefore, construction does not begin during the wetter months and does not result in as many precipitation delays. Staffers are also meeting with franchise utility contractors to coordinate CIP projects, Daake said.
“We found that the franchise utility coordination process could be greatly improved,” Daake said. “Beth Bowden, who is the right-of-way specialist for the engineering department, is helping the CIP department in regards to coordinating with franchise utility contractors to discuss any issues about power lines that may be in the right of way.”
Bowden is meeting with the franchise utility contractors each month to learn where they will place power or service lines that could affect CIP projects, Daake said.
An example of the city’s coordination efforts with the utility companies is a construction project that will begin in March. Some of the utility poles have been removed from the area affected — Rice Street, from Standifer to Howell streets; Lively Street, from Finch to Rice streets; and a section of Howell Street near College Street.
“We’ve already got most of the franchise utility poles moved, and it won’t go to construction until March. The significance of this is that we’ve removed the poles before we’ve ever started inconveniencing folks by tearing their street up,” Daake said.
Such meetings had not taken place previously, and the utilities were not participating in the walkthroughs on the projects.
“We’re holding the franchise utility contractors accountable and, as a result, you’re seeing less delays and projects are completed much quicker,” Daake said.
The Rice/Lively/Howell project was originally slated to begin in November, but the city postponing the work so affected residents won’t be hindered by delays resulting from wet, winter weather.
“That’s a good example of how we’re trying to focus on the end date of the project and not the start date of the project. If we go into construction on an asphalt street and it rains for four months, and the contractor can’t work, it will put people in a mud bog for four months. We need to anticipate the weather for the projects and 45 percent of the CIP projects in the last three fiscal years have been delayed due to weather,” Daake said.
The CIP department is also planning to ensure that all permits are acquired from all entities and all critical rights of way are acquired before awarding construction contracts, Daake said.
He said he specifically wanted to focus on the infrastructure initiative projects after he took his new position because most of them are in residential areas east of U.S. 75 and can hinder people when construction is going on in front of their homes.
“The infrastructure initiative projects are almost done exclusively on the east side of town, and we put in storm sewer lines to replace the ditches with those projects. They can make a serious impact on the quality of someone’s life. The challenge of those projects is that you’re conducting construction in neighborhoods, where folks need to be able to get in and out of daily, and when construction projects drag on, you adversely affect those people,” Daake said.
“The more efficiently we can undertake these projects, the more projects we can do with the finite amount of funds that we have available. These projects are important because as areas age, obviously, infrastructure becomes obsolete and we have water line failures on occasion. We prefer to handle those proactively and replace the aging infrastructure before it actually fails, rather than handling it as an emergency situation in the middle of the night when a water line actually fails”
The city inherited a lot of projects when it moved the CIP program in-house, and staff members are working hard to resolve all the issues and to move the projects forward, Kessel said.
The CIP department is also working to better inform the public about all active infrastructure projects. The city’s Web site, www.mckinneytexas.org, should include a summary of each project under the development services and engineering department links, Daake said. The information should include what the project entails, where it is, when it should be completed and if it is still on schedule. The city will also send out a letter to every person who lives on an affected street, Daake said.
Contact staff writer Brandi Hart at hartb@acnpapers.com. To post comments online, access this story at www.scntx.com.
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