Council, authority debate $50,000 task cap on on-call engineering contracts

Del City's City Council and the Del City Municipal Services Authority debated how the council's approved renewal of on-call professional services agreements would be executed after approving task-based contracts with a $50,000-per-task compensation cap.

The agreements renew standing lists of prequalified firms (Friese & Nichols; GH2 Architects; Professional Engineering Consultants; Agwire & Fields) for engineering, architecture and surveying work for a one-year term. Council members and trustees pressed staff to clarify whether the approved wording would allow many separate $50,000 tasks to be authorized without a separate council approval, increasing aggregate spending beyond expectations.

City Manager JD Hawk said the intent was to streamline procurement by prequalifying firms so individual tasks could proceed efficiently, but he told the body that larger project expenditures would be brought back to the council for approval when they approach typical construction procurement thresholds. Council members sought a firmer cap or a clearer process for returning to the council when multiple tasks could cumulatively exceed manager-level authorization.

Council questions focused on whether the $50,000 limit applied per task only, whether a single project's engineering scope could exceed that limit without separate council review, and whether the manager's $10,000 daily limit (as stated in the meeting) effectively remained the operational cap absent further direction. Several members suggested amending the authorization to require council review once aggregate task spending for a single project reaches a specified threshold.

The council approved renewal of the task-based contracts as written but directed staff to provide project-level cost reporting and to return for specific authorization when engineering costs for a given project approach higher procurement thresholds.