City Awards 2020 Grass Cutting Tender to Seasonal Impact for $240,397
To help cut costs and effectively manage the City of Wetaskiwin’s limited staffing resources during the COVID-19 pandemic, grass maintenance throughout the City was contracted out for the 2020 season.
Four local bids and four non-local bids were received in response to the grass maintenance tender. While the City always strives to support local businesses, fiscal accountability remains an expectation of the community and the City must balance supporting local with the responsible use of tax dollars. The lowest local bid received was more than the allowable 15% increase approved by Council for local bidders.
“We made sure to advertise this opportunity on all our online channels to ensure local contractors were aware of it and could put in a bid if they wanted to,” said Sue Howard, City Manager with the City of Wetaskiwin. “We will continue to work with our local contractors on any and all future opportunities that come up.”
Hiring out the grass maintenance for the 2020 season is expected to save the City of Wetaskiwin money compared to the normal operations and a report will go back to Council when the contract has concluded. Savings are due to the equipment pool charges that the City must budget for when staff use City-owned equipment to conduct work. The decision to do a pilot project for this service in 2020 was strictly to determine if this was a less expensive way to complete the work and to try to give an opportunity to a private firm given the lack of work due to COVID-19.
Future bid opportunities will be advertised on the City website at www.wetaskiwin.ca, as well as on the City’s social media channels.