Council Agenda Report

Transcription

1 Agenda Item #6.4. Council Agenda Report SUBJECT: AWARD OF A CONTRACT FOR THE WATER METER PROJECT MEETING DATE: December 15, 2015 RECOMMENDATION Staff recommends that the City Council adopt Resolution No , "Authorizing the City Manager to award a contract to Golden State Flow Meters, Inc. in an amount not to exceed $3,514, for the Water Meter Replacement project, subject to securing the requisite financing. BACKGROUND At the regularly scheduled City Council meeting of May 19, 2015, the City Council gave staff direction to circulate a Request for Proposals (RFP) for a Water Meter Replacement project. The RFP had been developed over a number of months by gathering input from City staff, the Water and Wastewater Monitoring Committee (WWMC) and various equipment vendors. Staff also researched RFP's done by other cities for similar projects and modeled some aspects of the City of Rio Vista's RFP after elements included by the other cities. The RFP was developed to include water meter replacements and retrofits and the installation of a fixed based meter reading system via radio antennas and transmitters. Additional elements requested were scenarios to upgrade the City's billing and collection process and methods to allow the customer to access their individual consumption data and pay bills in a variety of ways. Specifically, the following elements would be included in the project: Replacement of all existing water meters and installation of meters where there are currently none. Staff supports this option of full replacement in lieu of the retro-fit option also presented. Installation of a fixed base Sensus meter-preferred reading and data storage system. Installation of new meter boxes or meter box lids where necessary to accommodate the new meter and transmitter equipment. Page 1 of 6

2 Installation of new meter valves where applicable. Repair/Replacement of water services where required to accommodate new meters. Upgrades to the City's existing Eden system to allow for more efficient billing and collection. Upgrades will allow on-line billing and payment options and a customer information portal. The RFP was advertised on June 5, 2015 and five proposals were received on July 16, REVIEW AND ANALYSIS The five proposals received were reviewed by a committee consisting of members from the City Engineers office, members of the City Finance Department and members of the City Public Works Department. This committee was further partitioned into a technical review group and a financial review group. Each proposal was ranked according to scoring from a predetermined scale included in the RFP. Points were assigned to each proposal in the following four categories: Water Meter Infrastructure Advanced Metering Infrastructure (AMI) Qualifications/Experience Cost It should be noted that there were no "perfect" proposals and staff spent considerable effort to equate the various aspects of each proposal and create an objective review process. The relative rankings from the technical reviews and financial reviews were combined to determine an overall ranking for each proposal. The initial overall rankings were as follows: 1) Golden State Flow Measurements, Inc. 2) Veolia Water West Operating Services, Inc. 3) Ferguson Enterprises, dba Equarious Waterworks 4) Fathom 5) Corix Water Products (US), Inc. The three other proposals that were received one by Ferguson Group, did not include the preferred Sensus Flex/Net system, and did not use the preferred Sensus meters. The Neptune AMR/AMI system as proposed by the Ferguson Group did not interface with the City s Eden System, and required a third party to finance the project. Their AMR/AMI system required four (4) antennas to interface and service the meters, as opposed to the 1 2 antennas as required by the other proposers. Ferguson Group also supplied the required analysis for comparing the Neptune equipment to the Sensus system equipment. Page 2 of 6

3 The other proposal that did not include the preferred Sensus equipment and meters was Corix, which proposed to use Zenner meters and software. Corix equipment required the use of 2 collectors and 22 various repeaters to read the meters and relay the data to the software also required two (2) antennas. This system is too reliant on the 2 antennas, and the 22 various repeaters to make the system read and work together. Corix did not submit the required analysis to compare the Sensus equipment to the Zenner equipment. Based on the rankings determined by the review process, Staff elected to invite the top ranked proposer, Golden State Flow Measurement, Inc. (GSFM) to meet and discuss their proposal further. In addition to gaining a full understanding of what was being proposed, staff wanted to query the proposer(s) regarding additional work that may be necessary to complete the project effectively. Said additional work would include meter box, meter valve and water service line upgrades; same of which had been identified by the initial water audit project and report by MC Engineering in Staff's reasoning to identify these costs up front was driven by the desire to generate an all-inclusive, not to exceed contract cost as opposed to a lesser contract cost with a large contingency fund attached. Through two meetings with GSFM and a field review of existing infrastructure, we were able to reach an agreed overall not to exceed price for the project of $3,514, However, through this process it was realized that the original proposal by GSFM had omitted a cost for transmitters that would increase the cost of the GSFM proposal and affected the initial ranking based on this omitted. Once the costs for the transmitters was included, GSFM s pricing was closer to the second ranked vendor, Veolia. Since the costs appeared to be close for the same scope, it was decided to also interview the second ranked proposer to review their proposal in its' entirety and determine if there would be any significant cost issues. Of note, there GSFM appears to have more experience with installation of the SENSUS FlexNet SYSTEM. GSFM has 24 of installations in comparison to Veolia s 4 installations. Through the meeting with the second ranked proposer, Veolia, staff defined the same scope of work that had been reached in agreement with GSFM. This would allow for an objective comparison of the two top ranked proposals. After the meeting and subsequent conversations to clarify certain elements, Veolia provided a unit cost for the meter box, meter valve and water service line upgrades work. When this unit price was analyzed in relation to the expected work, Veolia s proposal was about $373,087 higher than GSFM s for the same scope. Through an extensive review process and interviews with the top ranked proposers, staff has arrived at the conclusion that Golden State Flow Measurement has presented the proposal that is most advantageous to the City of Rio Vista. Page 3 of 6

4 Note that staff is recommending the option of replacing all meters (option 2) versus a hybrid of replacing some of the meters and retro fitting others with new registers (option 1). Staff believes that the cost difference between the two options ($165,000) is not significant enough to warrant keeping a portion of the old meters in place (approx. 1400). Also note that staff is recommending the option of maintaining the billing and collections in house as opposed to contracting with a third party to perform these operations. The Finance Department has indicated that the City costs for doing these tasks is significantly less than the pricing observed for third-party services ($32,000 from Ferguson for mailing and printing only, to $376,000 from Veolia annually for full scale billings and collections). Additionally, it is widely believed that the proposed upgrades to the meter data storage and transfer system and to the City s existing Eden system will help improve the efficiency of the billing and collections. ENVIRONMENTAL REVIEW The project is exempt per California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) per Article 19, Section 15301, and of CEQA Guidelines. "Existing Facilities", under CEQA, allows for the operation, repair, maintenance, permits, licenses, and/or minor alterations of existing facilities. FINANCIAL CONSIDERATIONS The overall capital improvements of the project are at $3,514,931. In addition, there will be annual costs for software maintenance, hardware warranties, and technical support expected to be $33,390 per year. Meter maintenance costs will eventually occur, but not expected to occur in the initial years of meter use. Estimates of these costs are $12,000 - $15, annually. The City does not have funds on account to directly execute the contract and will have to identify financing options to fund the project. (The contract would not be executed until/unless financing is secured.) Financing for the capital improvement portion of this project is to be in the form of lease-purchase financing from a private institution or through another source. Anticipated interest rates are 3.45% on a 15 year, base loan. Annual payments would be in the range of $290,000. Added to the other identified annual costs, the City should be prepared to service annual debt in the range of $340,000 for this project for the next 15 years. The Capital Improvement Program (CIP) Water Fund 80 will provide the funding for the annual debt, with cost savings from water leaks, revenue generation from bill collections for past due accounts, from flat rate to meter rates for those customers with non-operational meters, and for those with no meters at this time. Page 4 of 6

5 ALTERNATIVES Do not authorize the award of a contract to GSFM for $3,514,931 (meter option 2) and instead authorize the award of a contract to GSFM for $3,349, (meter option 1) for the Water Meter Replacement Project. Do not authorize award of a contract to GSFM for failure to initially include the transmitters and instead authorize the award of a contract to Veolia for $3,888,018 (meter option 2); or alternatively authorize the award of a contract to Veolia for $3,735,723 (meter option 1) for the Water Meter Replacement Project. These costs from Veolia do not contain any contingency costs, and contingency costs were contained within the GSFM not to exceed number. Do not authorize the award of a contract to either GSFM or Veolia and give staff other direction. SUBMITTED BY David S. Melilli Director of Public Works and Community Development Attachment: Resolution Page 5 of 6

6 RESOLUTION NO A RESOLUTION OF THE CITY COUNCIL OF THE CITY OF RIO VISTA AUTHORIZING AWARD OF A CONTRACT TO GOLDEN STATE FLOW MEASUREMENT, INC. IN AN AMOUNT NOT TO EXCEED $3,514, FOR THE WATER METER PROJECT AND FINANCING THROUGH HOLMAN CAPITAL CORPORATION OR FROM ANOTHER SOURCE WHEREAS, on May 19, 2015 the Rio Vista City Council authorized advertisement of a Request for Proposals (RFP) for a Water Meter Replacement Project, and; WHEREAS, the prepared RFP was publicly advertised on June 5, 2015 and five proposals were received on July 16, 2015, and; WHEREAS, staff reviewed and ranked all the proposals and then interviewed the two top ranked proposers to clarify the project scope and negotiate costs, and; WHEREAS, staff has determined that Golden State Flow Measurement, Inc. has presented the proposal that is most advantageous to the City for an overall project cost not to exceed $3,514,931.00, and; WHEREAS, adequate funding for the project will come from the Water Capital Improvement Program (CIP) Fund 80, and; NOW THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED BY THE CITY COUNCIL OF THE CITY OF RIO VISTA that the City Council does hereby authorize the City Manager to enter in to a contract with Golden State Flow Measurement, Inc. in an amount not to exceed $3,514, for the water meter replacement project and financing through Holman Capital Corporation, or from another source. PASSED, ADOPTED AND APPROVED the 15th day of December, 2015 by the following roll call vote: AYES: NOES: ABSENT: ABSTAIN: ATTEST: Anna Olea-Moger, CMC, City Clerk Page 6 of 6