As I mentioned yesterday in Part One, someone — exactly who, I cannot say — has estimated the cost of a new Archuleta County jail facility at $13 million, and although I’ve never heard anyone explain how that number was arrived at, we did hear architects Bob Johnson and Brad Ash encourage the Archuleta Board of County Commissioners to accept that price as a firm and final estimate. This, in spite of the fact that the architectural drawings are not yet available.
We’re listening here to interim County Administrator Greg Schulte:
“What everyone needs to understand is, if we are going to get shovels in the ground this year, if it’s important that we get construction started so we can get to a place where we’re not transporting [inmates to La Plata County] anymore. We gotta get going.”
Mr. Schulte assured the BOCC — Ronnie Maez, Steve Wadley and Alvin Schaaf — that the staff needs to see some decisions made. No more dillydallying. He expects some important decisions will be made at the BOCC meeting on February 5.
County Sheriff Rich Valdez and his staff have been transporting inmates since April 2015, when the BOCC decided to shut down our existing 34-bed jail in the downtown courthouse following a roof leak. So we’re coming on 4 years of transporting inmates and housing them in Durango at a cost of maybe $300,000 per year. Maybe more? (In 2014, Archuleta County was spending about $1 million a year to house inmates in our own downtown courthouse.)
Mr. Schulte listed off the important decisions that may be made at the next regular BOCC meeting:
“So. Number one, size of the jail. Assumption about the location. How we’re going to finance this. And are you going to set direction for staff to pursue this CM/GC approach to construction. If we’re going to do Certificates of Participation, there’s a whole series of steps, if we’re going to do that. And I’m going to need a decision from you, because people are at a point where they’re going to start incurring real costs.”
Well, I guess the taxpayers have already incurred ‘real costs.’ I believe the County has spent in excess of $130,000 — and maybe much more than that — just getting to this point in their planning process. But now we’re talking about ‘Real’ real costs.
I hadn’t heard previous discussions about “the CM/GC approach to construction.” This was a new twist for those of us who’ve been following the process for the past 4 years.
Architects Brad Ash and Bob Johnson — “our experts,” according to Mr. Schulte — were invited to explain the “CM/GC approach.
Architect Bob Johnson:
“We’re going to talk about this process called Construction Management Slash General Contractor. Sometimes it’s referred to as CMAR. Construction Manager At Risk… And we’re talking about this for two reasons.
“One. We have a fixed budget. We understand that we have a fixed budget. Every month that goes by, we’re probably losing $50,000 to cost escalation. So we don’t want to lose that. We want to expedite the date when we get into the ground. So this process allows us to get a price from a contractor, before we finish all the drawings. And I know that sounds scary to you, but it’s done all the time.”
There are many scary things that governments do, all the time, with taxpayer revenue — or even without any revenue to speak of, by putting our children and grandchildren into debt. But just because it’s ‘done all the time,’ doesn’t necessarily mean the Archuleta County government ought to do it. Meanwhile, Mr. Johnson may believe that we all understand that we have a fixed budget. ($13 million?) But some of us might have the impression that — if you fix the budget before you have the finished architectural drawings, you might be getting the cart before the horse.
Because, unlike government officials, most of us had to earn the money we spend with our own sweat.
Mr. Johnson continued explaining the CM/GC process:
“We prepare about half of the construction documents — the documents you would bid from — and we issue those [limited drawings] as a pricing package to the CM/GC we’ve selected. With no obligation, mind you. And we say, ‘Please prepare your proposal for this price.’ If the price comes in satisfactory, then we sign them up and tell them to go ahead and build it.”
This is a somewhat different process from what I’ve watched our local governments use with other capital construction projects. Typically, I’ve seen our local government issue a complete description of the proposed project, and then accept bids from anyone qualified to build the project, with the understanding that the final product will meet all of the project specifications. The government then — typically — chooses the lowest bidder, although in some cases, a higher bidder is chosen, for whatever reasons.
From what I heard on January 22, Bob Johnson was advising the BOCC to forego the competitive bidding process — on a very expensive jail project — and simply pick a company and tell them the price we are willing to pay. Mr. Johnson apparently had someone in mind.
I’ve got a couple of questions about this whole process. I don’t expect the BOCC to care about my questions, because they’re spending someone else’s money. But what the hell, I’ll ask them anyway.
Architect Bob Johnson told the BOCC that, for every month they delay in building their very expensive jail, “we’re probably losing $50,000 to cost escalation.” I’ve talked to local contractors who have verified that the cost of building materials in Pagosa Springs has increased greatly over the past few years.
But the proposed jail will consist mainly of concrete block. Are we really seeing cost escalation in the price of concrete block, in particular? Like, $50,000 a month? Here’s a chart published by the St. Louis Federal Reserve Bank.
On their website, the chart is interactive, so you can find the comparative cost of concrete block for any month, from June 1981 through December 2018. Right now, it appears that concrete block is 249% of the June 1981 price. The price took a huge jump in August and September of 2017. But the price in December 2018 was identical to the price in September 2017.
So maybe Mr. Johnson is exaggerating the “cost escalation” threat? To make things seem more urgent than they really are?
That’s a sales technique familiar to every used car salesman. Create an artificial sense of urgency…