Barry drops the hammer on gubmint contractors.

[smackaholic]

So, now that he's handed an unimaginable amount over to the finance industry, he is gonna put some poor gubmint contractors out of business. These contractors, of course, have chiluns to feed and they will undoubtedly end up in homeless shelters.

Heartless cunt.

If he wants to really do some good and save a few $$$$ he would do away with the ridiculous "prevailing wage" regs that apply to contractors. A buddy of mine has a business installing playground equipment. He has a few lackeys that he usually pays between 12-20 bucks an hour. He did some military housing installs where he was required by law to pay his most worthless pos somewhere around 32 bucks an hour as it was considered prevailing wage for laborers. Needless to say, the most worthless of his workers was given that week off.

[Cuda]

[smackaholic]

That dude must be one of them assistant concrete mixers (prolly the guy who whacks open bags of portland cement with his shovel all day) who will go from 32 bucks an hour to whatever walmarters start at which is a fair bit less.

[Dinsdale]

Ahh, the good old days of prevailing wage.

Then again, back in "those days," I usually got more than prevailing whether it was government titty or not.


Remember though -- if it weren't for prevailing wage, the union contractors would have gone out of business a looooong time ago.

[BSmack]

Ahh, the good old days of prevailing wage.

Then again, back in "those days," I usually got more than prevailing whether it was government titty or not.

Remember though -- if it weren't for prevailing wage, the union contractors would have gone out of business a looooong time ago.

If it wasn't for concepts like "minimum wage", "prevailing wage" and "collective bargaining", America would be a 3rd world shithole.

[Mikey]

So, now that he's handed an unimaginable amount over to the finance industry, he is gonna put some poor gubmint contractors out of business. These contractors, of course, have chiluns to feed and they will undoubtedly end up in homeless shelters.

Heartless cunt.

So you don't think that the practice of awarding "cost plus" and "no-bid" contracts (a favorite of the previous admin, BTW) should be reviewed? Talk about government waste. These guys have routinely flushed $billions down the shithole with no accountability whatsoever.

[Cuda]

So, now that he's handed an unimaginable amount over to the finance industry, he is gonna put some poor gubmint contractors out of business. These contractors, of course, have chiluns to feed and they will undoubtedly end up in homeless shelters.

Heartless cunt.

So you don't think that the practice of awarding "cost plus" and "no-bid" contracts (a favorite of the previous admin, BTW) should be reviewed? .

Never Gonna Happen

Not as long as Feinstein, Pelosi & Boxer have anything to say about it. What, you think they're gonna shit in their own rice bowls?

[Left Seater]

So you don't think that the practice of awarding "cost plus" and "no-bid" contracts (a favorite of the previous admin, BTW) should be reviewed?

Hell, no! "Cost Plus" contracts should be the required norm. The problem of the $500 hammers and other stories are a direct result of Congress wanting FFP (firm fixed price) contracts.

Take for example the recent upgrade of Naval Communications Stateside. This was a 10 year contract to upgrade the Voice, Video, and Data communications abilities at all US Naval insitutions. General Dynamics was the primary contractor and wanted to go with a cost plus approach. They bill the government for their time and materials plus 12%. Congress said no, we want a Firm Fixed Price contract. GD went back and redid their bid and it was accepted.

Sad part of it though is it will cost you and I about 25% more than the Cost Plus bid. GD has no idea what materials and labor costs will be in a decade. Nor do they know what their fuel bills, etc will be. So what did they do? They projected fuel costs of $10.50 a gallon, labor rate increases of 50%, etc. Sure some of that is very unlikely to happen, but that's what the government wanted. Congress wanted to know exactly how much would be appropriated each year for the next 10.

So, HELL NO, cost plus should not be reviewed as a way of doing contracts. All govt contracts should be cost plus.

[Mikey]

Left Seater, you make a good point. As well, low bid does not always ensure that you will get the best product for your money. In fact it often results in poor results and/or huge overruns.

However, from what I've heard, the administration of cost-plus contracts does need to be reviewed. There needs to be much better oversight to ensure that costs are real and reasonable.

[Left Seater]

Completely and totally agree. Contractors need to provide summaries of hours and materials for each section of a contract to the extend it makes sense.

IE, Company X spent 2500 hours and $80,000 in materials to replace window panes in building X.

This is of course in addition to the complete detail submitted with each invoice. Further the government needs to move to electronic payment are recievables.

[smackaholic]

So, now that he's handed an unimaginable amount over to the finance industry, he is gonna put some poor gubmint contractors out of business. These contractors, of course, have chiluns to feed and they will undoubtedly end up in homeless shelters.

Heartless cunt.

So you don't think that the practice of awarding "cost plus" and "no-bid" contracts (a favorite of the previous admin, BTW) should be reviewed? Talk about government waste. These guys have routinely flushed $billions down the shithole with no accountability whatsoever.

Don't really know enough about the entire process other than what lefty said rather well. Much of what the gubmint contracts out is pretty damn complex and to even try to make a cost estimate is ridiculous. The best way to do such things is on a cost+ basis.

I will admit that determining "cost" is certainly a tricky proposition.

This is yet another reason why the best policy regarding gubmint expenditures, be they on private contractors or civil service hacks, is to ask, should they be doing it in the first place?

I think the answer to that question in a large majority of cases is "fukk no".

[Left Seater]

Don't really know enough about the entire process other than what lefty said rather well. Much of what the gubmint contracts out is pretty damn complex and to even try to make a cost estimate is ridiculous. The best way to do such things is on a cost+ basis.

I will admit that determining "cost" is certainly a tricky proposition.

This is yet another reason why the best policy regarding gubmint expenditures, be they on private contractors or civil service hacks, is to ask, should they be doing it in the first place?

I think the answer to that question in a large majority of cases is "fukk no".

Smackaholic,

In reality it is pretty easy. Say you are bidding on a contract to replace the windows in an FAA control tower. The contractor will estimate the number of windows a crew can replace in a day. That tells him how many days it will take. Then he adds up the cost for the new windows, the lifts needed to get the men and glass up there, the seals, etc. He then submits that as a bid. Government then awards a contract.

Now lets say that when his crew is working on replacing one of the windows they find cracks in the framework holding the window in place. They put together a new estimate and submit that to the gov as a change order. The gov then either approves making the new repairs and therefore increases the scope of the project, or it doesn't and provides the contractor with a written waiver for the area not repaired.

At the end, you add up the labor and materials and then multiply by 1.X. X being the profit agreed to in the contract.

[Derron]

Don't really know enough about the entire process other than what lefty said rather well. Much of what the gubmint contracts out is pretty damn complex and to even try to make a cost estimate is ridiculous. The best way to do such things is on a cost+ basis.

I will admit that determining "cost" is certainly a tricky proposition.

This is yet another reason why the best policy regarding gubmint expenditures, be they on private contractors or civil service hacks, is to ask, should they be doing it in the first place?

I think the answer to that question in a large majority of cases is "fukk no".

Smackaholic,

In reality it is pretty easy. Say you are bidding on a contract to replace the windows in an FAA control tower. The contractor will estimate the number of windows a crew can replace in a day. That tells him how many days it will take. Then he adds up the cost for the new windows, the lifts needed to get the men and glass up there, the seals, etc. He then submits that as a bid. Government then awards a contract.

Now lets say that when his crew is working on replacing one of the windows they find cracks in the framework holding the window in place. They put together a new estimate and submit that to the gov as a change order. The gov then either approves making the new repairs and therefore increases the scope of the project, or it doesn't and provides the contractor with a written waiver for the area not repaired.

At the end, you add up the labor and materials and then multiply by 1.X. X being the profit agreed to in the contract.

Easy ?? Hell no....

First off you have to make damn sure you have the job broken into the right classifications as far as labor goes. Labor can have 6 or more different functions in one day for one person, with the average about 3 in our case.

1- Laborer on 45 hp tractor= $ 42.00 man hour wage and benefit package. If he moves up to a 85 hp backhoe, the wage rate goes up another $ 5.00 per hour. If the man goes to the 85hp backhoe for 15 minutes, you can either try and break that out and track it, or just put in the bid for the total hour, eliminating the tracking fucking nightmare.

If he goes back to installing drains or sprinklers, the rate goes back to $ 19.32 per hour.

We look at the job, and estimate it in our software for x number of hours, in the different wage classifications, and then add 5% more time. We estimate the total number of equipment hours, regardless if that bitch sits in the marshaling yard or is working. We add an administrative person one day per week on the job per 3 workers on site, for handling the extra certified payroll bullshit and the excessive paperwork required by the government. We arrive at our total COST to us to perform the job.

We then mark the job up a minimum of 1.35, our normal private funded markup. Depending on the market, if our competitors are tied up on other jobs, and my experience with that particular agency or general contractor, I usually add up to another 35%, since I am going to have to carry the job for 45 to 60 days before my first check, and 45 to 60 for the next one, the next one. In our small business, that means I am carrying 30K for 45 days, plus making sure I have enough cash to cover the other expenses in that time frame.

So you now have the job marked up about 1.70. Prevailing wage usually adds 30% on labor cost ,and we step on the margin at least 15% more on prevailing wage government jobs, so you now have a total inefficiency of at least 45% versus a private funded and built project.

Efficiency of stimulus dollars??

Enter the change orders. The contract usually sets the limits on the markups on change orders to 10% on labor, 12% on overhead and 12% on equipment, or somewhere in that range .So we run into a change order situation say, requiring 4 man hours. Since we are already contracted on the job, the GC really has no choice but to accept our change order process. If I write the CO for the 4 hours with that markups, I am breaking even. That simply is not going to happen on the change order. I need to get the margin back up to the 1.75 markup, so I am saying it will take 12 man hours with those markups and I am back to my needed margin.

Change orders can make you a lot of money, but you never write them for anything less than 2 to 3 times what it will actually take. We also run into more admin costs on tracking processing and trying to get paid on the change orders.

So that is how the stimulus will help bring our economy back. Get that money working in the private sector, and you will get 35% more value at minimum versus these prevailing wage jobs. I would rather do private work or non PW work over PW work any day. We make lower overall margins, but can execute about 2 to 3 times the same amount of work in the same time period, and make more margin, in the same time period.

Stimulus and all the PW work it will bring is not a very good value. Been there and done that. We are still waiting on the final payment on a PW job completed in November, and change orders we wrote in October. So if they make me carry that $ 16,000 for that long, you can be damn sure I am going to make a good margin on it. Fuck them. I bid these jobs so high, I get about every 8th one, but its a fucking payday when we do, and it has to be.