Conflict builds to a fever pitch

With a near-halt to commercial construction, a longstanding feud between Washington’s civil engineering consultants and government public works departments has gotten down and dirty.

In non-cordial letters and meetings, officials from the private and public sectors have tangled over who should be designing roads, sewers and other projects that represent much of the engineering work available during the severe downturn in private construction.

Engineering firms laying off employees and cutting pay resent the measures cities and counties are taking to retain staff, including some members who may have been transferred into departments where they have no experience. Work that has been let to consultants in the past is being kept in-house, they charge.

Those complaints have been around for a long time, says Bill Garrity, president of the American Council of Engineering Companies of Washington. But consultants fearful of losing access to government contracts have kept their mouths shut, he says.

No more.

In Western Washington, the consultants erupted after Snohomish County in May published a guide to services — engineering among them — that the county can provide to cities and other jurisdictions.

Locally, resentment blew up in September, when Spokane County decided to design sewer projects internally after soliciting consultant qualifications.

Jeff Logan, a principal at USKH, summarized many of the consultants’ concerns in an October memo circulated to “Friends, Romans and (Engineering) Countrymen.”

He first cites county and city projects, notably sewer work, that were not contracted out to consultants.

Logan objects to the overhead costs agencies impose on taxpayers, including consultants, that private companies must include in their bids. Agency staff members are writing grant proposals for projects that will compete with client proposals.

In an interview, he calls the recent county decision to eliminate more than 100 positions “staggering,” but asks whether the cuts are not an indication that departments were overstaffed.

Government should do for itself only what the private sector cannot do for it, Logan says.

Mike Taylor, head of engineering services for Spokane, says he understands the pressures. He closed a firm in 1981 when double-digit interest rates smothered construction.

Although Logan’s memo faulted the city for explicitly stating it will look to its own staff first for design work, Taylor says the public gets more pavement when overhead can be spread over more projects.

The city has 20 ongoing contracts with 15 consultants, he says.

The consultants met with county and city officials last month to vent their grievances. A follow-up meeting is scheduled for January.

Jim Harakas, western regional manager for GeoEngineers, helped arrange the November gathering. The consultants, he says, just want a fair shake when local government allocates the scarce dollars it has available for public works.

Everyone’s goal, he says, should be the best possible project at the lowest cost.

If there has been one positive from the recent recession, it is the aggressive bidding on public works that has lowered costs 20 percent or more. The more competitors that can be kept in business, from the ground up, the better.