Get Full Government Meeting Transcripts, Videos, & Alerts Forever!
Get email alerts on the Procurement topic
No spam. Unsubscribe anytime.
Council committee expands cityon-call professional services pool to 93 agreements
Summary
The Finance & Law Committee recommended amending two resolutions to increase the city's pool of on-call professional services master agreements from 52 to 93, raising vendor limits intended to widen procurement options and boost MWDBE participation. Committee members pressed OMB for details on per-vendor caps and oversight.
The Finance and Law Committee of the Pittsburgh City Council on June 25 recommended approval of two related resolutions (Bill 19‑40 and Bill 19‑41) to increase the number of authorized open-ended professional services master agreements the city may use to issue work orders.
The change amends earlier authorizations that originally allowed 52 master agreements and now would authorize a total of 93 agreements. Joshua Lamondi, Office of Management and Budget, told the committee the amendments "increase the vendor pool" for phase two of the citys Invitation to Qualify (ITQ) master agreements by adding 15 vendors to the pool.
Why it matters: Master agreements let city departments put qualified firms on an on-call list and then issue individual work orders without re-bidding each time. Committee members said expanding the pool is intended to speed delivery of projects, increase opportunities for smaller and local firms and raise MWDBE participation, while raising questions about fiscal oversight and cumulative exposure.
Officials and the committee clarified how the agreements work. Lamondi and Jessica Nusser of OMB said the per-vendor cap for the larger category is $1,500,000 per year; for a separate "smalls and mediums" category the limit is $750,000 per year. "It's per vendor," Nusser said when asked whether the cap applies to each company on the master agreement list. Lamondi added that individual work orders are issued under each master agreement and that a single work-order scope cannot exceed $500,000.
OMB staff said the ITQ is an open, rolling solicitation: firms may submit qualifications at any time and the city pulls qualified firms into the pool periodically. Lamondi said the rolling approach helps the city avoid lengthy RFPs for every project and gives smaller firms opportunities to compete for narrower scopes such as landscape architecture, erosion control, traffic design, bridge engineering and special inspections.
Council members pressed for additional transparency and follow-up. Councilman Wilson asked OMB to provide a follow-up explaining what new information prompted the expansion; Councilperson Warwick asked for confirmation that the $1,500,000 cap is per vendor and how the city tracks spending. OMB said master agreements and resulting work orders are executed through DocuSign, stored publicly via OpenBook, and that work orders include itemized cost proposals by deliverable.
Outcome and next steps: Both resolutions received an affirmative recommendation in committee and will move forward to the full council. The committee discussion recorded an explicit clarification that any actual projects charged to these contracts still require budget authorization in the capital budget or operating appropriations before work may proceed.
