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KingofthisShit t1_j7jhq0q wrote

There has to be more oversight and regulation on how contractors can spend their money working on public projects, this is a ridiculous waste of money spending so much on "consulting", overstaffing, and unnecessarily expensive add-ons that aren't the norm anywhere else.

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PsuedoSkillGeologist t1_j7kdcqk wrote

More oversight?

I take it you don’t work construction.

Much less NYC Construction.

Why would an owner care if you overstaff your job? They don’t pay them. In fact they prefer you overstaff it. You’re paid based on a schedule of values. Not your staffing.

The consultant fees (mine included) is a result of change orders. The only reason the MTA was on the hook for it was because the GC was able to prove, through the help of the consultants, that the owner provided insufficient information to make a reasonable bid.

As per usual, the owner and misappropriation of their funds is what cost the city more money. Not the contractor and consultants.

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SuperTeamRyan t1_j7khnfk wrote

I was under the impression the consultant should be the one providing the information to the contractor and the state(owner) pretty much just says we want X done. At this point in my understanding all the contractors make impossibly low bids to get the job and then once the have the job delay slow and stall work to milk the project because the state compared to them generally have unlimited funds and they know the state will not allow a public works project to just stall out once ground has been broken.

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Jeff3412 t1_j7kzrw7 wrote

>I was under the impression the consultant should be the one providing the information to the contractor and the state(owner) pretty much just says we want X done.

Correct. I am a design consultant.

We meet with clients, architects, or owner reps and ask them what their needs are with regards to our trade and then we make specs and drawings that go out to bid to contractors. Depending on the job and contract we may help review the bids and point out which bids are missing scope where.

>At this point in my understanding all the contractors make impossibly low bids to get the job and then once the have the job delay slow and stall work to milk the project because the state compared to them generally have unlimited funds

A contractor winning a job with too low of a bid (whether intentionally or unintentionally) and then trying to create as many change orders as possible even in places that the documents are clear is always a concern, but public sector jobs are usually worse because often legally they have to go with the low bid.

In the private sector you can say to the end client, the architect, or owner's rep that contractor X has a slightly lower bid than contractor Y but based on past jobs contractor Y is more reliable (and their bid is actually capturing all their needed scope). Then the client can choose to spend slightly more upfront to pick the contractor that their consultant advised them too.

But on a public job letting agency officials pick a higher bid could also end up being a recipe for enabling corruption.

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mrpeeng t1_j7l5gqg wrote

My old company did this for various gov. inspection jobs. They'd undercut the bids just to win them for the cash flow to pay for other higher paying jobs. Gov. payment was always reliable so that kept the business running when it was slow. When they lost a job to some one else due to a lower bid, they'd have them audited to see how it was possible and fight it. There are a bunch of stupid rules that inflate the bids though like some jobs had requirement where you HAVE to use a company that is women owned for 20% of your supplies. You find them and they ALL charge 200% the normal rate of something like a ream of paper.

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atyppo t1_j7lc1fd wrote

Yep. It's insane. If the government is literally required to discriminate 30% of the time (NYS standard) for MWBE owned businesses, then I have no hope for our legislators, since they clearly lack any sort of self-awareness. Shocking news: women aren't typically particularly interested in running tunneling companies, for example (yes, I'm aware this is a very simplified example). The ones that are can now charge whatever they want since they have little to no competition, yet the state is obliged to contract them.

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vidro3 t1_j7lcixd wrote

> In the private sector you can say to the end client, the architect, or owner's rep that contractor X has a slightly lower bid than contractor Y but based on past jobs contractor Y is more reliable (and their bid is actually capturing all their needed scope). Then the client can choose to spend slightly more upfront to pick the contractor that their consultant advised them too.

Isn't the standard something like lowest qualified bid or lowest responsible bid? I forget the exact wording. I've definitely seen bids for city projects that all came in a pretty tight range and the absolute lowest was not selected. Sometimes it's some reasoning like well Skanska already built these 7 bridges so they can more easily build the next 5 even though their bid is 4% higher.

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PsuedoSkillGeologist t1_j7km2ih wrote

This is logical to you?

For a general contractor to win a $3B job and from the get-go. Drag their feet. Hoping it’ll lose money, so they can sue the owner and get MAYBE 20 cents on the dollar?

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SuperTeamRyan t1_j7koc2z wrote

Yes.

Underbid > get contract > start work > make slow progress > go over budget > still get paid as essential infrastructure is essential.

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PsuedoSkillGeologist t1_j7kwflz wrote

Ok. I think I see your confusion now. As a general rule of thumb most companies, in every industry, across the entire globe don’t try to lose money on their work.

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Jeff3412 t1_j7kzqo3 wrote

You talking about change orders from a contractor or from a design consultant?

The design consultation are the ones making the specs(In my experience not actually on the MTA job I did) and drawing sets that are supposed to give the contractor all the information they need to bid on the project. If that information is incomplete then the consultants really need to raise the alarm before they issue documents for bid or there's no point in bringing in outside consultants.

I say that about the specs because when I have worked on an MTA job instead of us writing the specs as we usually do they gave us a huge master spec that the MTA uses for all jobs and we just included word for word the relevant sections. I never felt more useless on a job. They essentially paid us to tell them what parts of their own specs to use which is something they could have easily done themselves.

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PsuedoSkillGeologist t1_j7m0xgl wrote

A Change order is a shared contract change. It's the legal amendment of the contract to reflect the changes made to the work.

A Design consultant is not writing the specifications per se (assuming we're talking about Civil projects and that there are no special specifications). What happens, as you've pointed out, is that we're conforming the drawings to the agency's state specifications. These will change agency by agency with a lot of overlap. Sometimes the DDC will use the NYSDOT's specifications and vice versa.
Why re-invent the wheel. This is all public domain as well, there would be no need to write a specification unless the drawings require special specifications.

I've only every work for Civil construction, we would never be expected to write specifications but more to conform to their state issued ones.

There's too much bloat in this industry. I come from a scientific background. I tend not to accept 'that's just the way it is' as we continue on an unproductive role. Something has to change in the lowest bid sphere.

Of course there's Best Bid and Design-Build which seems to be a step in the right direction, but it comes with its own set of special failures.

I'm rambling at this point but just to summarize, yes you're absolutely right. Contracts are written for the contractor to conform to their specifications, which opens risk to the Owner when their specifications can not be met.

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philmatu t1_j7lbv1w wrote

I see time and time again that the agency doesn't have adequate staff (both in numbers and competency) to create clear requirements and contracts. This leads to vendors bidding for that set of requirements and a markup (to deal with the agency's incompetency), then when the project fails, change orders ensure further revenue streams. Then the agency does soul searching to figure out where it went wrong. It's a vicious cycle that costs all of us in the end.

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PsuedoSkillGeologist t1_j7lz9w9 wrote

Without a doubt. I’d have no consultations if owners got their shit together.

I’ve presenting risk sharing models at ASCE that I believe would be the best solution for differing site conditions and design flaws. Even the questions at the end of the presentation were adversarial.

Every Job has change orders. And every owner and contractor seems to be looking for ways to make or save money. Both sides want to shift risk instead of addressing the issue that COs WILL happen. Instead of working out the semantics beforehand on what constitutes a ‘shared change’ they live in denial until they’re hiring consultants and design engineers to prove their side right. Once the smoke clears. The only profitable parties were the lawyers and consultants.

Nobody, and I mean that literally, Nobody can predict how the earth will behave in subterranean NYC. Meaning that you will always have a DSC. Why not accept this upfront and share the risk? Why? Because the owner wants to claim means and method and the contractor wants to pretend like they didn’t foresee the CO.

It’s all reactive instead of proactive. Because you can’t claim you didn’t see it coming if you try to be proactive.

Keep in mind this is a very broad generalization. Every CO is different. Some are slam dunks by the contractor and some are just wishful thinking.

The truth is that it’s never one party’s fault. But it is one party’s responsibility to build the structures. That means there’s an inherent opposition in what is supposed to be civic duty.

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philmatu t1_j7m154o wrote

Surprisingly in 2011 my agency hired some MIT grads to design a system internally and become the integrators... mind you this system failed 6 times before. That model was so successful and cheap that it was transferred to 10 other projects, but most of the engineers left and weren't replaced with equally intelligent people. I'm the last of that wave and I'm simply too overwhelmed and overworked to keep up with the contract demands, so stuff naturally slips through the cracks. I care, but there isn't enough of me to keep up. As a result, many contracts are going up in cost and COs are happening, simply because I don't have time (nor resources) to create proper requirements to meet the deadlines imposed on me. It's purely become reactive. I agree

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PsuedoSkillGeologist t1_j7mcsqi wrote

Sorry you gotta deal with this man. Why is it happening? I keep seeing the same names moving up to higher agency positions and the people I felt were competent engineers are now going Private or working for the contractors.

It’s a problem on both ends and of course my experience is anecdotal. But it seems like they push away talent to the higher paying private sector because they’d rather get 2 incompetent engineers for the price of 1 competent one.

Either way I appreciate what you do. I know it’s extremely difficult. And my resentment against agencies (much like corporations) is in their leadership. Those that seem to be ‘cruising’ when the reality is they have the ultimate responsibility to taxpayers.

Same can be said with my side. The nefarious GCs that intentionally start a project anticipating COs and find ways to double dip on contract work and CO work. They ruin it for everyone that believes in the concept of civic duty.

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SleepyHobo t1_j7nx196 wrote

I work with contractors all the time on private and public projects. A lot of the time, especially on public projects, the change order is the result of nefarious intentions on the contractor's side to squeeze as much money as possible out of the owner because the government pays out big once a project is in the construction phase. CSI Format Specs were born out of the result of gross, shady contractors and increase project costs.

Lack of oversight leads to shit like this:

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  • Public contracts go to the lowest bidder i.e. the lowest common denominator. So you're already off to a bad start.
  • Contractor (bidder) intentionally bids as low as possible, hiring consultants to substitute as much equipment and materials as physically possible to decrease their bid. If you're lucky, sometimes they "accidentally" miss things in the contract and try to get a change order for those things later on, delaying construction.
  • Contractor will go behind the designer/engineer/architect's back straight to the owner or your client, violating the chain of command set up in the contract mind you, and say "Hey I can do Z instead of X and save you (and the contractor themselves) $$$$!" Owner/Client then comes to you and is eager to move forward with this substitution or design change which puts pressure on you to approve an inferior product that may not work as good.
    • This usually leads to RFIs down the road from the contractor to the designers when something goes wrong with their substitution and throws their hands up saying "Well what should we do now??? You approved it!" even though the contract stipulates the contractor is responsible for added costs due to substitutions.
  • Contractor has now spent a shit ton of money on consultants that was not part of their bid. They now need to make money on the contract and recoup the costs of the consultants.
  • Contractor will continuously wear designers/architects/engineers down, sending in submittals that keep getting rejected for the same reason hoping they just relent. Sometimes they just give you submittals that have the completely wrong products for the spec or are just massively incomplete. They never send the full submittals if you do a partial approval.
  • Contractor will submit products for review that don't meet the specs 99% of the time. Sometimes they change a minor detail that you can easily miss during review. Boom. They want a change order for the correct product. Nah sorry, you submitted a substitution. That's on you Mr. Contractor. Get bent.
  • Contractors generally install things however they want, treating design drawings (the contract) as recommendations. Time after time I see contractors cut corners to save costs violating the contract. When these cuts get caught in inspections, it constantly delays construction.
    • Will submit products for approval, but not buy them and secretly substitute with something else.
    • Will not install equipment with proper clearances even though the design accounted for them. Here comes the RFIs, change orders, and inspection failures!
    • The worst contractor I saw was for a brand new HVAC system for a building.
      • He just reused the existing system, installed a few pieces of flexible ductwork, and put in some cheapo Home Depot fans (not powered or ducted) hoping he'd get away with it and call it a day. LOL. Lawsuit.
    • Will just not install items that allow for a complete, operational system.
  • Change orders pour in as a result of a contractor's inexperience in installing projects of certain designs. They don't know how to do it so they think they deserve more money to figure out how.

I really could go on and on. Can I also say that CBRE is the worst consulting group I've ever worked with?

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ken81987 t1_j7qod4h wrote

The subway costs 10x more than it should because the MTA didn't anticipate change orders well enough? Sounds unrealistic

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williamwchuang t1_j7kngmy wrote

The federal government should give the DOJ an extra $10 billion a year just to root out public corruption and corruption in public contracts on both the state and federal levels, and in the administration of government benefits programs. I bet that would make huge returns on investments.

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FuglySlut t1_j7l02xb wrote

Is anyone breaking laws? A great deal of the "waste" is due to following regulations. More govt to reduce govt is a little sus.

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planning_throwaway1 t1_j7lbr42 wrote

yeah. so frustrating reading any comments thread about infrastructure

one of the chief reasons stuff is so expensive in the US is the insistence on using consultants and private contractors for literally every little thing

and to control costs, all these laws and regulations were created, very reasonable sounding, that were supposed to prevent govt waste and corruption

things like being forced to always take the lowest bid, always bidding on the end of every single contract, blind bids, etc

in a sane world, if you had a contractor who did a great job, you'd keep them. in the land of govt contracts, they're often forced to re-bid for the work, and often lose out. no way for them to lower their bid to match, they're just out. never mind that the new consultant is gonna burn 6 months of cash just getting up to speed, we're saving!

or on literally any infrastructure project. if someone bid honestly, i guarantee you the planners/engineers etc could tell you they're the ones to go with. but in reality, a shitty contractor can underbid on purpose, the choice is completely out of the hands of anyone competent, and once they have the job what is the govt going to do? build half a tunnel? switch contractors halfway through?

the entire system has been designed to fail, all because our main assumption about public employees is they can't be trusted to make good decisions. that private industry always does it better, and to prove that we're going to take away all agency from those awful government bureaucrats and give it to private consultants... at 3x the cost.

and if you are a competent govt employee, this system is almost certainly going to drive you out - why work somewhere where nothing you do matters and everyone hates you?

How does Paris build so much, so cheap, with heavily unionized 1st world labor in a densely packed, old, catacombs riddled city? They let boring public bureaucrats handle the planning and engineering, and then when they're ready to build they keep their contractors on a tight, tight leash. That's how

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hak8or t1_j7l4g5b wrote

I think the issue here is what is defined as corruption.

I instead would favor, on a federal level, an agency created solely to find inefficiencies in our government on a micro scale (not macro).

Make their department be funded by a minimum of a few hundred million a year, give them a huge swath of authority to levy fines on an individual person basis rather than agency/department basis, and let them keep 10% of all fines given, one third of which gets contributed to their employers pension funds, one third to the agency itself, and one third given to all tax payers via a seperate line item on their tax return, so the agency is very visible to everyone.

And when they find actual corruption, give them a mini DOJ so they can throw actual criminal charges at individuals themselves, rather than wait for the DOJ.

And lastly, the agency would only receive oversight from a very constrained group of people, be it the president himself, or the Supreme Court justices, or similar, meaning don't let congress touch it.

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LuisTheCool t1_j7kmit6 wrote

You should read The Last Subway, unfortunately it’s been like this for decades only back then you could lie more easily about spending costs and people would be none the wiser

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lunaoreomiel t1_j7kc815 wrote

Make it free market and all this graft goes away

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donttouchthirdrail t1_j7kffa3 wrote

This is the free market. Do you think these contractors are run by the government?

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TheGazzelle t1_j7kh6pc wrote

It is not free market when you have MWBE requirements on every job and have to hire incompetent people to "run" money through in order to meet your % requirements.

Look at JFK, the state wants 30% MWBE. Each of those businesses are a racket with no competition and drives up the overall price of construction.

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nychuman t1_j7lnghh wrote

Anybody downvoting this does not work in construction. You’re absolutely correct.

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donttouchthirdrail t1_j7mpd1m wrote

Which are also free market firms?

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TheGazzelle t1_j7nsoiu wrote

Except the state mandates their use and keeps them in business. So no. They are not free market. It’s like capitalism with a noose around the neck.

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ArcticBeavers t1_j7kjtax wrote

You want the method the federal government takes by giving projects to the lowest bidder? Half-assed work that doesn't last or needs constant replacement. MBWE is the least of our concerns with spending inefficiencies.

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TheGazzelle t1_j7kndis wrote

What are you talking about? I am not saying that at all, it should all be competitive. Right now I see 20-30% of projects budgets I work on get grifted out of existence to some rich MBE owner who never turns up to the jobsite and is completely incompetent. The only reason they exist is to live off the grift of the bureaucracy that forces everyone to use them.

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I have friends applying to JFK opening MWBEs and getting hired as consultants for triple their normal salary because the agencies need a way to spend $6 billion of the $18 Billion total budget on "Minority" enterprises. Workers get "borrowed" from one parent company to MBEs as a way to divert money and skim an extra 20%. It is ridiculous. MWBEs are 99% GRIFT.

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vidro3 t1_j7lcx4n wrote

Ask consultants and it is well known that such and such MBWE is in a wife's name but basically run by a guy who is a lead at another firm.

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TheGazzelle t1_j7lkl02 wrote

Yeah exactly. Put a regular or noncompetive company in your wife's name (or give 51% to a random minority owner) and now all of a sudden they get $30m-100m contracts on these government projects, then they drag out construction and make mistakes because they aren't very good but the government is forcing us to use them. Happens on literally every government job.

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lickedTators t1_j7kn37c wrote

It's by definition impossible to have the government engage in free market deals.

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