There was too much going on this past Monday . . . no uniform vendors qualified due to living wage and sweat-free ordinances so they are exempting them from the living wage, does that sound right to you? Central park and more . . .
I skipped the part with the staff position changes and contract for the stagehands at Overture. The only interesting part was when Satya Rhodes-Conway wanted to ask a question and she must have gotten a dirty look from the Mayor because she quickly said “I know you want to get home to dinner, but . . .” The other item of note was that they barely had quorum with Tim Bruer, Mike Verveer and Jed Sanborn missing. Leaving Rhodes-Conway, Mark ClearClear, Joe Claussius and Mayor Dave Cieslewicz.
UPDATE ON UNIFORM RENTAL
Dean Brasser, the Comtroller says that Randy Whitehead (Purchasing) and Laura Marinella (City Attorney) are here to give an update on an issue that has come to light.
Whitehead says that there was an RFP went out for unifrom rentals for various departments. There were no qualified bidders cuz of living wage and sweat-free procurement ordinance. [Wow. That’s why those ordinances are in place!] So, they will be going back out to bid with a stipulation that they can use a proportional calculation on the living wage.
The Mayor and Rhodes Conway and I think Clear all asked what that meant. [eyeroll, seriously?]
Marinella, says she is not sure who was on the board of estimates last time this was before the board of estimates, and I think Clear said none of the present alders were. Mayor says he was there. She says that as a result of the last bid and an action at this body, they are required to have all employees working on city contracts over $5,000 pay a living wage. She says it is rarely a problem. Last time they did a bid, the vendors made accusations back and forth about their ability to meet the living wage. And as a result, the ordinance was amended to prohibit a proportional calculation. Whitehead can explain, she say ordinance doesn’t say what that means, we believe it has something to do with dividing up the quantity of work and workers [Oh, now I really have a headache, how could NO ONE know what it means! For christs sake, ask around, try harder, it wasn’t that long ago.] working on city contract as opposed to entire work force and calculating a proportion based on what work they do on the city contract. Or some other proportion. Currently prohibited, however, the ordinance says that if no vendor comes forward, and staff determines that compliance with the subdivision the contract can be rebid with a waiver for the proportional calculations. The bid that was put out only had two bidders. Turned out neither one of them could comply and they withdrew their bids. So here to let you know about rebidding, so there is no surprises.
Rhodes-Conway says heard one bidder was not able to meet living wage requirement and the other not able to meet the sweat-free requirement.
Whitehead says that the one that could not meet the living wage requirement would have been able to do it with the proportional calculation. The other one, whether or not if they could meet the sweat-free procurement was unclear, they refused to fill out the affidavit.
Rhodes-Conway asks about she heard about proportional calculation, which is not most often in service contracts but in building trades work where you may have different wages in different jobs that you are not allowed to deduct from other jobs pay for workers who work on the higher paying jobs. If you don’t prohibit it, contractors will do that. [No, that’s not it.]
Brasser says that before the last change to the ordinance, hypothetical, contractor who’s pay for normal work is $1 less per hour and 10% of their work is city contract, the requirement of ours is that each of people working on city job, get an extra dollar of pay. For vendors who can identify who is working on that job, that is not an issue, what is not allowed is that if calculation where because all uniforms go through same operation and they cannot isolate those working on it, everyone raised 10 cents per hour instead of those working on the job being raised $1 per hour. That was prohibited and that would be an example of how we would apply the living wage proportionally. Cuz you can’t identify the specific individuals.
Rhodes-Conway asks about the sweat-free ordinance, is there an off-ramp there.
Whitehead says there are no exemptions allowed.
Clear asks if they would receive more than one bid if this was waived.
Whitehead said there was another vendor who indicated the reason they did not bid was because of the living wage calculation.
Clear asks if the vendor who did not meet the living wage misunderstood.
Whitehead says yes.
Clear asks if they withdrew after they found out.
Whitehead says yes.
Mayor says this is just a report. No further questions.
ADA PARATRANSIT CONTRACT
Crystal Martin and Chuck Kamp from Madison Metro are called up. Kamp asks Martin to explain the handout and try to clarify information out there so understand how Metro understands the contract proposal and the process to select the recommendation.
Kamp says that the score-sheet is on the front page and there is three different financial related criteria, there has been a lot of focus on the cost proposal which is 20% but also two other financial related questions that add 10% to the proposal. There are a total of 30% of total points that go into recommendation. Metro gets federal funding, we have reviewers who look at this info and they follow a FTA guideline and look where ti says price along is not determinative. He give background on how they score it. Her reads from the regulations and says that “the less definitive the requirement the more development work required or the greater the performance risk, the more the technical or past performance consideration may play a dominant role in source selection and supersede low price. He says that is a motivating factor. He says that a para-transit contract with people with disabilitites not like buying office supplies, buying bus parts or rebuilding engines. Martin goes through this process, asks her to go through the contract and how it works and how the review sheets came to be.
Martin says that on the third page there is a color chart and this is the daily challenge to serve this number of trips each hour of the day. The trips are during the spikes and are 16% and it is the part that are recurring or standing trips during peak times. Those trips are able to be served effectivly cuz predictable, steady day to have drives in service all day and productive all day. That is what they are talkignm about.
Rhodes-Conway asks how many.
Martin says 150 – 200 in the yellow part. Overall 1,000 to 1200 trips a day in the other portion.
Rhodes-Conway asks about the scale.
Martin says that at peak its about 250 rides per hour. 1/3 are wheelchair users, so using this program since 2005 when they did a pilot and under ADA not allowed to have capacity constraints, can’t say we are full have to meet the demand and find a way to do it. Pilot went well in 2005 and made it a part of the regular program. She shows the costs below, they have multiple providers and with this contract can manage trips. She says that proposals evaluated separately, there is a technical team and price team. The technical component looks at familiarity with Madison common locations, qualifying experience including licensing and background checks and vehicle inspections, organizational capability, no-shows and cancellations, data capabilities for reporting requirements. She shows the score sheets, Badger Bus ranked first in all categories. In second cateogry in organizational categories its marked second but its actually first.
Mayor asks if price is 32% of the score.
Kamp says it is 20% and other financila is another 10%.
Mayor says there was a story in the State Journal that got that wrong, it said it was only 3.4% of the score according to the appeal, and the appeal got it wrong.
Kamp says looking at lowest price, not a correct interpretation but the person filing the appeal took the 200 points for low bid minus Badger Bus 168 and difference was 32 out of 1,000 and that is where they got their number, but not a fair representation of the cost.
Mayor says they were looking at the score sheet not the actual price or how it is weighted.
Kamp says prices came in so the low bidder got all the point and all the others they look at % difference from low bidder to determine how many points they get.
Mayor says other issue in the article, is the $350,000 additional cost over three years compared to Abby Vans. Why is it worth that much over three years.
Kamp says that first of all the point scores reflect the variable, we cannot have local preference, but quality of reparations and maintenance procedures abut Abby Vans is located 350 round trip form Madison, that effects their ability to respond to maintenance, dispatchers not in Madison, 1-800 numbers, we don’t say local preference but it does end up being a factor.
Mayor says mandated to provide the service and can’t say van can’t show up, reliability of the provider is extremely important.
Kamp says phrase feds us is capacity constraints cannot be a reason to turn down the ride.
Rhodes-Conway asks if she is correct in thinking the people served are primary or only method of transportation.
Martin says the peaks are M- F employment related and very important to them and us.
Rhodes-Conway says bid out peak but also bid out the rest separately.
Martin says yes.
Rhodes-Conway asks if they get the same set of responders.
Martin says they get a mix.
Rhodes-Conway says base service is that cuz need more vehicles?
Yes, much larger piece and can juggle amongst contracts.
Rhodes-Conway asks if multiple providers for that.
Martin says yes.
Rhodes-Conway asks if you could have a smaller fleet.
Martin says smaller fleet and you isolate it form the blue, some of proposers offered to do both, which defeated the purpose.
Motion passes.
OTHER
Verveer is now here . . .
They got a briefing from the Monona Terrace Booking event funds. They get reports from 2009 regarding portion of money they get from the room tax and updates from 2010.
Mayor asks for paragraph description of the Neighborhood Grant programs, but they approve them anyways.
Yay, rah, rah, central park.
Consultants recommended to be hired for meter system for water utility.
And that’s it . . .
