All goods and services, including construction contracts, should be competitively procured or bid. City municipal code requires staff to purchase good or services at the lowest cost. This is why City construction contracts are awarded to the lowest, responsive responsible bidder.
The responsibility to ensure you are procuring City goods and services at the lowest cost available is an ongoing one. Regularly purchased good and contracted services should be routinely re-evaluated and re-advertised.
Per the City’s municipal code Professional Services are not required to be competitively bid and may be instead awarded based on a consultant’s experience, familiarity with the work, personnel, and other criteria specified in the Request for Proposal (RFP). However, it is the City’s business practice to competitively bid professional services whenever possible.
Finally, City procurement policy calls for the periodic evaluation of our in-house services to ensure we are providing services in the most cost-efficient manner (e.g. versus contracting services out).