Bossier City Council approves citywide street bids, annexation, budget changes and emergency water repairs

The Bossier City Council on a routine vote approved contractor bids for a 2024 citywide street improvement project, adopted several budget and land-use ordinances, reappointed a member to the Metropolitan Planning Commission and approved an emergency payment for water-main repairs.

The council accepted bids opened for project P24-10, the 2024 citywide street improvements. The engineer's estimate was listed as $1,909,406.29. The lowest submitted base bid was $1,169,289.52 from Benton and Brown LLC; Ernest Contracting LLC submitted a base bid of $1,650,393.25. Council voted to approve the bids with the listed alternates; one alternate amount in the record for Benton and Brown is unclear in the transcript, while the alternate for Ernest Contracting was recorded as $229,897. The staff report said the work will use remaining funds from the 2024 budget and part of the 2025 budget; the remainder of the 2024 budget at the time the report was prepared was $1,354,275.

In separate final readings the council adopted an ordinance amending the 2025 general fund budget to increase transfers in for the engineering department's salaries and benefits;…