The Shreveport Architectural and Engineering Selection Committee (A/E Committee) reviews and makes recommendations to the Shreveport mayor for the selection of firms seeking to provide architectural, engineering, interior design, construction management, land surveying and landscape architecture services on Shreveport projects of maintenance, construction, and other public works.
An A/E subcommittee was convened for the purposes of discussion and implementation of an updated selection process. The goal of the committee was to give the members of the selection committee greater opportunities to make selections objectively and provide more transparency in the selection process.
The proposed ordinance is summarized as follows:
1. The committee will have 11 voting members: city council chair; city council vice-chair; director of public works or designee; director of water and sewage or designee; Disadvantaged Business Enterprise (DBE) director or designee (this probably should be Fair Share director or designee); city engineer or designee; city architect or designee; four citizen members.
2. The citizen members include the following: a non-city employee or retired non-city employee with managerial experience in business or finance; a non-city employee nominated by the African-American Chamber of Commerce or the Shreveport Chapter of the NAACP; a non-city employee nominated by the Shreveport Chapter of the American Institute of Architects; a non-city employee nominated by the Shreveport Chapter of the American Society of Civil Engineers or the Shreveport Chapter of the Louisiana Engineering Society.
3. Those non-city employees serving on the committee and their firms will not be eligible to compete for city A/E contracts or be a subcontractor during their term of service, including six months after the end of service.
4. The ordinance applies to contracts that exceed $150,000 (or expected to exceed that amount) for the specified services;
5. The A/E selection committee is to evaluate all submittals from A/E firms to determine those considered to be most qualified and suited to perform the work utilizing a 1-5 scoring for the following criteria:
a) capability to perform the project;
b) past/pending criminal/civil litigation, past/present administrative discipline within last five years;
c) the city's fair share ordinance participation;
d) qualification of all professionals essential to the work to be performed;
e) current workload;
f) qualifications of sub-consultants;
g) understanding of program/project including potential challenges/City's special concerns:
h) past performance of city projects including deadline compliance, and if no past city contracts performance information from other sources;
i) location of assigned team and office staff for project;
j) presentation comparing different approaches to design process, understanding of project requirement, management approach to technical requirements, project manager style/work approaches and communication abilities.
6. The submission evaluation process is to be completed in person by a voting quorum of the A/E selection committee at a regular meeting as each scoring factor is considered by the committee, with tabulations by the non-voting purchasing agent or designee.
7. The A/E selection committee "may take into consideration the scoring and shall recommend up to three of the highest scoring firms to the mayor." Note: As written, the ordinance seemingly does not mandate the three highest scoring firms be recommended to the mayor.
8. For all contracts subject to the ordinance, the mayor is to select one of the firms recommended by the A/E selection committee. Then the city department is to negotiate a contract with the selected firm for a "fee or at rates of pay fair to both parties." If agreement is not reached, then the mayor shall select another one of the firms recommended by the A/E selection committee.
9. The A/E selection committee is to submit to the council clerk quarterly reports with detailed information on committee recommendations and contracts awarded by the city.
10. Once a solicitation for services is issued, there is a prohibition on communications between submitting firms with city employees, city officials, selection committee members and council members until notification of the selected firm.
11. A post-project evaluation shall be conducted by the user agency following completion of any A/E selection committee project which shall be retained by the city's purchasing department for consideration by the A/E selection committee on the award of future contracts. This evaluation shall be scored on a 1-10 basis using the following criteria:
a) demonstration of knowledge of design criteria and procedure;
b) ability to meet contract requirements with minimum direction;
c) quality of plans;
d) completion of work within contract terms;
e) general spirit of cooperation;
f) change orders.
The revised ordinance is quite comprehensive and differs substantially from the existing A/E ordinance.
Hopefully, city vendors in the areas of service subject to this ordinance will carefully review the same and provide input to council members.