Highway contract selection on hold

BOISE – The selection of a politically active Boise company to oversee the biggest highway construction program in state history has been put on hold after questions were raised over how it won the contract.

The Idaho Transportation Board voted 4-1 last month to give the contract to Washington Group International of Boise and CH2M Hill of Denver, though its evaluation committee had unanimously picked the competing bidder, New York-based Parsons Brinckerhoff and HDR Engineering.

Officials at Parsons Brinckerhoff charged, in a letter to the department, that board members improperly favored a local, politically connected company – something federal regulations forbid. Federal highway officials are questioning whether proper procedures were followed as well.

Although the state board believes it acted appropriately, it has put the contract on hold and may reconsider.

“We feel like we did what we were supposed to – Parsons Brinckerhoff obviously doesn’t agree,” said Chuck Winder, chairman of the transportation board.

The contract is for the project manager for more than $1 billion in highway construction to be funded by GARVEE bonds, a type of financing that borrows against future federal highway appropriations. Gov. Dirk Kempthorne persuaded lawmakers last year to go along with the plan, dubbed “Connecting Idaho,” which includes major upgrades to the state’s only north-south route, U.S. Highway 95. The project manager will serve as the general contractor to oversee the huge series of projects, which could stretch over 15 years.

“We can … understand a desire on the part of the Board to trust those who they have worked with in the past and in who they have confidence to support the local economy,” Clinton D. Topham, Northwest district manager for Parsons Brinckerhoff, wrote in a Nov. 8 letter to state Transportation Director Dave Ekern. “However, FAR (Federal Acquisition Regulation) explicitly prohibits giving preference to local consultants or those who have given political support.”

When the board chose WGI and CH2M Hill in a special meeting Oct. 27, board members noted that both bidders were highly rated by the selection committee, according to the meeting’s minutes. They discussed how WGI and CH2M Hill are well-known in Idaho and have completed many projects in the state and contributed to the state’s economy. They also noted that the two were part of the coalition that backed the “Connecting Idaho” initiative.

The lone dissenter was board member Bruce Sweeney of Lewiston, who said he couldn’t see a compelling reason to vote against the recommendation of the department’s staff. He also raised concerns about some details of the WGI/CH2M Hill proposal, and he said the other firm had relevant program-management experience. Sweeney proposed giving each bidder a role in the project, but no other board members supported that idea.

On Nov. 21, Federal Highway Administration Division Administrator Stephen Moreno wrote to Ekern to warn that federal rules may not have been followed in the contract award. “I request that ITD staff evaluate the consultant selection process for the aforementioned contract against established procedures and confer with us prior to proceeding with any negotiations for this contract,” Moreno wrote.

In a special meeting on Wednesday, the state Transportation Board agreed to put the contract award on hold. It will come up for possible reconsideration at the board’s next meeting, on Dec. 14.

The department hasn’t assigned a dollar value to the contract; financial details are still to be negotiated. The project manager will oversee more than 100 engineering and construction contracts.

The Transportation Department will ask the Legislature in January to approve the first of the 13 projects that together make up the “Connecting Idaho” program.

Transportation Department spo-kesman Jeff Stratten said the federal concerns about the contract award focused on having the board select the contractor, when regular procedures call for the department’s assistant chief engineer for development to make that call.

“Because of the uniqueness of this contract, because this is the first contract we’re awarding to manage a program, because of the importance to Idaho of the completion of the GARVEE program, it was the decision to elevate the approval to our transportation board,” Stratten said.

The “Connecting Idaho” initiative is more than 10 times the size of anything ITD previously has taken on.

Topham, in his letter, said, “All nine members of the selection committee came to the same conclusion: that the PB team most closely met the qualifications and should be selected.”

He added, “Given the process used by ITD in the selection, we believe it would have been impossible for the board to fairly overrule the selection committee unless they found an error in the process.”