From Paben
A new bill in Olympia would give Washington contractors a leg up in bidding for public projects.
Click here to see the bill language.
HB 1809, which has a companion bill in the Sente, was referred to committee today. A hearing hasn’t been scheduled yet.
The bill says that the state or local governments “shall award a contract to the responsible bidder with the lowest responsive bid after a resident contractor preference of seven percent has been applied.”
The intent, of course, is to support businesses that’ll pay state workers and reinvest in our state’s economy. But what about businesses based in Portland and Coeur d’Alene, which likely still do business in urban areas of Washington just over the line?
What do you think?
As former employee/resident of a state that had a 5% resident preference . . . . it’s a great way to increase the cost of government. Local vendor marks up their cost 3%, submits bid, & agency HAS to accept the 3% higher bid.
Sock it to the taxpayers, again. They get the inflated bill. Just a hidden tax.
Pretty soon everyone will want a “special preference”
Except that in closed and competitive bidding,
the chances of marking up your entry arbitrarily to cover this discount spread is minimal at best since you haven’t any idea what the rest of the field is doing.
So the two arguments above are BS.
Add to that
the return to the State on all the taxes, fees and employee benefits and the 7% disappears like last night’s drunken bed partner.
These typs of preferences only inlfate the costs of state construction projects over time, either by chasing oof out of state competitiors, enabling in-state contractors to take advantage of of lack of competition, or by simply adding 7% to our construction bill.
No matter what the illustrious Citizen argues, this will raise costs for state paid construction, and the taxpayer will ultimately get the bill.
Maybe we should just start handing out a special preferences to every one who does business with government – federal, state, and local.
And if all states erect barriers to competition, then our economy will fix itself.
Ultimately this is one expensive proposition for the taxpayer, and they will get the bill.
Honest competition keeps our taxes lower, and Citizen ultimately is voting against that with this anti-competitive legislation.
This is for companies who cannot compete. Corporate welfare in disguise.
It’s easy and simplistic to say it will raise costs,
a bit harder to point to how.
One could just as easily say that all out-of-state bids will now be 7% lower.
Wow Citizen, I know you are smarter than that. You must be lonesome for someone to argue with.
You really cannot figure out how the public’s costs will be raised when a local company can bid 6.99% more than the next lowest bidder, and win.
Today lowest bidder wins. Tomorrow, lowest bidder plus 6.99%.
Looks like a raise in costs for the taxpayers to me, but go ahead and make you best argument.
I shall not respond, as I have already made my best argument above.
Let the readers decide.
Guess what?
Nobody bids any job ever with competing bids in hand.
Nobody bids any job with anything but their true lowest costs estimates.
The lone exception would be federal military contracts and other non-competitive bidding processes.
None of which apply here.
Your kind words and thoughtful observations about me personally notwithstanding,
bidding is what I do.
So far you’ve not addressed one reason why this discount would lead to increased costs.
In the alternative, you must be arguing that this 7% local bidder preference will either not raise costs or is revenue neutral.
Good luck.
First if you knew that your local competitor could win bid, then you might skip bidding in those areas altogether, lowering the number of competitors bidding for projects. Less competitors equals higher prices.
Second, companies which win their share of low-bid contracts are generally more efficiently managed organizations. What does it say when the more effective organizations begin losing bids, and the less effective organizations start winning the bids.
You must work for a high bidding local organization, that needs Mama government to help you compete with the big boys.