Contractor chosen for Bourbon County sewer district

Saturday, February 5, 2011

After some confusion, a $1.8 million construction bid for Bourbon County Sewer District No. 1 at Lake Fort Scott has been awarded to McInroy Contractors LLC of Nevada, Mo.

Bids for the construction of Bourbon County Sewer District No. 1 were opened on Jan. 12; however, one bid was missing a couple documents and another was handwritten and illegible.

Project engineer Stuart Porter, with the Manhattan-based engineering firm Schwab-Eaton, evaluated all the bids received. Porter, County Counselor Terri Johnson and Assistant County Counselor Valorie Leblanc made recommendations to the Bourbon County Commission at its Jan. 24 meeting.

The commission voted to reject the lowest bid from Sprouls Construction after determining it to be non-responsive because it was handwritten and illegible. The bids must be clean and unambiguous on their face.

Dwight Sprouls, of Sprouls Construction, told commissioners he had additional information, including a revised bid sheet. However, Johnson and Leblanc advised the commission to not review the additional documents because no other contractors were allowed the same opportunity.

The second lowest bid, from McInroy Contractors LLC, was also investigated as to its responsiveness, as two of the three addendums were not included in their bid packet. Richard McInroy of McInroy Contractors LLC said the pages were signed and accidentally left out of the envelope. After a review of state and federal cases, as well as supporting documents, Leblanc said because the missing documents were discussed at the bid opening it was determined a minor deviation. The bid was determined to be responsive.

After comparing the references and the best use of public funds with that of the next lowest bidder, Heartland Construction, the bid was then awarded to McInroy Contractors. Porter, who is based in Beloit, Kan., said he has not been involved in any work completed by the company, but he is familiar with them.

"They have a considerable amount of experience performing work that is consistent with the scope of work that the project consists of," he said.

Funding for the project comes from a $500,000 Community Development Block Grant, as well as a combination of rural development loans and grants.

Although the bid has been awarded, Porter said the timeline for when the construction will begin has not yet been determined because there is still a great deal of paperwork that needs to be signed by the contractor, county attorney, state engineer for rural development and the county commission.

"We really haven't gotten to the point where we can establish any of that because contracts have not been inked," he said.