Bidding Language- smh

[Road Guy]

I pulled this off an advertisement today:

DAVIS-BACON ACT: As an Option, XXXXXX County reserves the right to award this contract subject to compliance with all requirements of the Davis-Bacon Act (“DBA”) as more fully detailed in Exhibit B as attached. The successful proposer shall familiarize itself with the attached exhibit as part of any contract with the county, and comply with all DBA requirements set forth in that exhibit

Two Bids are to be completed using the Submittal Section: the first costs NOT subject to DBA, the second costs subject to DBA.

I hate seeign shiate like this.. either tell the bidders your using DB wages or not? Tell them to submit two bids and maybe we will use DB and maybe we wont...

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[Dexman PE PMP]

I thought Davis-Bacon is a requirement for any publicly funded project. Why would they have a separate bid without DB wages?

 

[blybrook PE]

The only time I've seen these shenanigans is when the owner (they) have two pots of money to pull from, one public, one private. They then try to split up the project in such a manner that they can maximize the amount of work completed.

It is still BS; split the project up before sending it to bid; make it known what work is DBW and what is not so everyone is bidding fairly.

 

[Ship Wreck PE]

We have worked on a few like this. If you take any federal money, you have to use DB wages.

Some projects are only partially federally funded, so taking the free money might make the projects wages rise more than the free money.

 

[Road Guy]

DB is only for Federally Funded jobs, (which I also think is BS)..

maybe they have a pot of all local or state money to pull from (this is a road project)

Causes a lot of cofusion for bidders = higher bids or a bad bid...

 

[acochran]

I once had a contractor who payed the masons by the brick. And to add insult to robbery, he then tried to skip town without paying them until the US Labor Dept called our office....So until you have deal with unethical contractors like I have.....don't kick the Davis-Bacon Act to the curb.....some less fortunate workers add this oversight.

AC

Engineer