By: Timothy Kays
At their December 1 meeting, members of the Bryan Board of Public Affairs (BPA) adopted Resolution 50-2020, authorizing the Director of Utilities to reject all bids received, and to re-advertize the 69.4 kV power transformers for the current 34.5 kV Upgrade Project.
“If you recall,” said Randy Gardner, Bryan Municipal Utilities (BMU) Director of Utilities, “…the Board authorized on August 18 at the BPA meeting, the advertisement for the major equipment for the 34.5 Project included in the 2020 budget. There are basically two bids in that equipment bid. One was for two 69.4 kV power transformers, and the second bid was for the substation structure.”
“Bids for the two transformers were opened on October 9, and it’s the opinion of…our consulting engineers SSOE that the proposed bids exceed power transformer size requirements. That also exceeded over our budget. So, by rejecting and re-advertising the revised transformer specifications, we could look to save at least $175,000 to $200,000. So we think it’s a fiscally responsible approach to basically get these bids, reject them, and…re-advertise.”
The new bid requests will include options for remanufactured transformers, which carry the same ten-year warranty as a new transformer. “We added that option,” Gardner said, noting that the reduction in transformer sizing should be much cheaper, “…and also adding the option of a remanufactured, we think we’re going to get a lot better bids on this.”
In other actions, the Board adopted Resolution 49-2020, approving the 2021 BMU budget, and requesting that the Bryan City Council adoption of the same. Because of the aforementioned bid rejections for the 34.5 kV Upgrade Project, that budgeted amount will be coming off the 2020 budget, and added into the numbers for 2021.
The Board agreed to the payment of up to $1,200 in continuing education tuition costs for Kevin Douglass, a BMU power plant employee. “Kevin’s taking advantage of bettering his opportunities,” said BPA Chairman, Dick Long, adding, “We’ve always encouraged that.”
The Board moved to schedule their final meeting for 2020 at 10:00 a.m. on December 31, with discussions about choosing a 2021 Board Chair and Vice Chair on the docket.
Timothy can be reached at tim@thevillagereporter.com