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Parks staff outline monthly project report, propose Clay County piggyback contract to speed purchases
Summary
Parks bond staff told the Fort Lauderdale Parks and Recreation Board they are issuing a monthly, citywide parks project report and plan to use a Clay County solicitation to speed procurement for park equipment; staff said they will return to the commission with financing details for signature parks in April or May.
Ben Rogers, acting assistant city manager, told the Fort Lauderdale Parks and Recreation Board that the parks bond team has begun producing a citywide monthly report that lists every parks bond project, its status and which party is responsible for next steps. “We’ve created a citywide report, all the projects, park on projects. We issue it to the city commission by the fifteenth of every month,” Rogers said.
The report, Rogers said, will be roughly 15 pages, organized by district with an itemized status for each park and notes about outstanding permitting, stakeholder input or community meetings. The monthly report is intended to increase transparency and to show which projects are awaiting action by the city, outside agencies or other stakeholders.
Rogers told the board the parks team has been working with procurement and the City Attorney’s Office to remove bottlenecks. One procurement step staff plans to recommend to the commission is piggybacking on a Clay County solicitation that Rogers described in the meeting as a roughly $6 billion menu contract for playground equipment and park features. Using that contract, Rogers said, would allow the city to purchase equipment directly from the existing solicitation rather than run separate solicitations for each purchase.
Alex Torres, who spoke about procurement alternatives, said staff has also been using job order contracting to draw work from a preapproved menu of prices and services to accelerate smaller projects. Rogers said staff has previously piggybacked on similar contracts on a project-by-project basis; the recommended action would let staff make future task-order purchases under one commission authorization rather than seek separate approvals every time.
Rogers said staff plans to return to the commission in April or May with a status update on the signature parks, a financing plan and finalized scopes and solicitations. “We’re looking to finalize the scope on everything and get the solicitations out and get real dollars back versus just cost estimates from consultants,” he said, adding that solicitations will include alternatives so the city can scale back elements without rebidding if bids come back higher than estimates.
Board members asked how consultant-managed projects (A ECOM/AECOM was mentioned in the meeting) fit into the new approach; Rogers said projects were bifurcated: larger, complex projects remain AECOM-led while smaller projects are being transitioned to city staff to lower project-management costs. A board member asked whether the new monthly reporting and procurement checks will catch errors in master-plan assumptions; Rogers said staff has already found and begun to correct several instances where master-plan maps included parcels not owned by the city and that the report and the district-level reviews are intended to surface those problems earlier.
Rogers closed by saying staff will continue improving transparency and provide financial documents the board requested.
Ending: Staff will bring the procurement and financing items to the city commission in April or May for further action; the monthly project report will be distributed to commissioners and the board going forward.
