GOVERNMENT CONTRACTS- anyone have any comments good or bad on doing mastication

[idahoktmrider]

looking for some info and expierences with government contracting. Have gone to a few pre bid site tour and just looking for some info..

thanks for your time

 

[Baby Grand]

G'ment is now contracting out cud chewing? I call bull!

 

[ALittleDirtWontHurt]

looking for some info and expierences with government contracting. Have gone to a few pre bid site tour and just looking for some info..

thanks for your time

We get a lot of IFBs from out-of-state government contractors looking for local mulchers to do ROW cuts. Particularly with the military bases, it's hard to get an actual site visit with these guys, but rather they email you an info packet with satellite views and a couple of field level shots. I'm assuming they're "preferred" companies with the federal government that do a ton various projects. I can only guess that many of them have been awarded the contract at an astronomical price and then try and sub to us smaller (and local) guys for as cheap as they can get.

 

[CliffordK]

I've worked on government contracts, but not "bid" on them.

Apparently it is always 'better" to have some kind of underprivileged minority person as a majority owner in the company.

One subcontractor I worked with, the wife was a Native American, and a 51% owner of the small company... except I never met her, and the husband was the one clearly running the company. She was always absent at all company events.

Another project I was on was a joint venture between a large company, and an American Indian tribe. All the workers on the project were very much Caucasian, and while I wasn't in a position to work with the management, I never met a single one of the Native Americans.

 

[DIRTROAD]

The few state jobs that I have bid are not too cumbersome as far as the fine print goes. The federal jobs are a nightmare. I will never look at a federal contract again. The Federal government can dictate what you must pay your workers, and I'm not talking about minimum wage. I read a contract one time and the government wages were around $20 hourly for what would have been a $10-$12 hourly job in the private sector.

 

[Tomtint]

You need to be a 1/2 black 1/2 Mexican, disabled veteran female with Indian ancestors. Then you can charge 3x what market rate is.

 

[Depmandog]

The few state jobs that I have bid are not too cumbersome as far as the fine print goes. The federal jobs are a nightmare. I will never look at a federal contract again. The Federal government can dictate what you must pay your workers, and I'm not talking about minimum wage. I read a contract one time and the government wages were around $20 hourly for what would have been a $10-$12 hourly job in the private sector.

That's not limited to the Federal Goverment. Missouri is a union state, and all public projects that involves local or state money requires payment of "prevailing wages". These wages are broken down by county, and by trade. Here in the KC area, the laborer's rate is now $41.35 / hr.

The federal Goverment requires payment of wages that comply with the Davis Bacon act. It too is broken down not only by state, but by county and work classification.

Concerning the OP's post, working for the Feds isn't particularly difficult, but there is a process, and if you don't understand the process it can be very confusing.

In addition to the aforementioned minority classifications, they do have a small business classification (based on your NAICS code / what business are in or service you provide). Ha! The small business standard for our work is annual revenues under 15 million and or less than 500 employees....to me that's a pretty large company!!

There are dozens of companies that provide classroom instruction (fee based of course) that teaches the ins and outs of federal contracting. Of course, if you are minority (or sometimes small business) you can get into the classes free.

 

[Larro Darro]

The few state jobs that I have bid are not too cumbersome as far as the fine print goes. The federal jobs are a nightmare. I will never look at a federal contract again. The Federal government can dictate what you must pay your workers, and I'm not talking about minimum wage. I read a contract one time and the government wages were around $20 hourly for what would have been a $10-$12 hourly job in the private sector.

I've never done any government contracts, but the private, not for profit I work for used to do some grant writing. We had art projects for the local kids in the summertime. The grant told us how much we had to pay for each job. Teenagers were making about as much as I did, and at that time I had been working here about ten years. One older lady who spent all day making copies got almost 50% more than my salary. Plus we had about nine people crammed in two small offices. Thank God I worked nights and weekends. In the end, we decided it was more work than it was worth.

 

[paulharvey]

Don't let "Davis-Bacon" wages scare you, often it means the lowest laborer or flagger gets a temporary raise while on THAT project, but most operators/skilled posistions wont.

Minority may or may not mean anything, but generally it doesn't ultimatly affect low winning bid.

What may help or seriously hurt you is "local contractor preference". My own county will take the lowest bid (if from outside of the county) and "shop" it back to the lowest local. The county where I work only does a re-bid between the low bidder and the low local, and only if low local is with in 5%. In the end low bid wins. These local laws very county to county and city to city.

I just finished a "Local Area Procurement(LAP)" road project (stimulas renamed) that was Davis-Bacon, certified pay-roll ect. They did strongly encourage the prime contractor to try and use minority or dis-advantaged businesses (DABs) but they can't tell you who to hire/sub.

I tried unsuccesfully to put a picture of the wage rates in.....

 

[Tomtint]

We have 18 months left on a 3 year contract with the state. They issue a prevailing wage sheet that tells you what the rate is for labor. All it does is protect the unions. My guys love it because they are WAY over paid. Tack on payroll tax and additional clerical and office costs and the cost per employee is close to 2.5-3x what normal wages are. This is how the state spends tax payer money with little regard to best value. Another example of how the unions are bleeding the system.