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Commission hears why some CIP projects saw big change orders and how staff plans greater transparency
Summary
Staff outlined CIP stages, change-order thresholds and reasons projects sometimes exceed early estimates — from added scope to delayed bids and unexpected subsurface work — while the Budget & Finance Commission and residents raised concerns about several projects with high change-order percentages.
Redondo Beach staff on Tuesday walked the Public Works, Safety and Sustainability Commission through the capital improvement program lifecycle, why some projects show high change-order percentages and steps the city is taking to increase transparency.
Program manager Jesse and other staff described the CIP process from project identification (department or council requests) through predesign, formal design, procurement and construction to final closeout and recordation. Staff highlighted funding categories (discretionary, restricted, Measure FP, Metro grants) and explained procurement options including traditional design-bid-build, design-build and progressive design-build.
Staff reviewed administrative policy APP 14.1 change-order thresholds: for contracts up to $150,000 the city engineer may approve up to $25,000 or 25% of the contract; contracts $150,000 to $500,000 also use 25%; contracts above $500,000 are subject to a 10% or $125,000 threshold. Staff said any amounts above those thresholds are returned to city council for approval.
Public commenters and a Budget & Finance Commission member presented data about projects with high change-order shares. Jim Mueller cited examples he said the commission had identified: an Anita at PCH lane project (Mueller reported a 233% change-order percent of the estimate), an Inglewood-Manhattan Beach Boulevard right-turn-lane project (about 83%), and a Torrance Boulevard resurfacing project (about 12%). Jasmine Allen of the Budget & Finance Commission said some projects rose 50% to 100% over initial plans and asked whether vendors could be taking advantage of the city.
City staff responded that change orders often reflect added scope that the council later chooses to fund, combined project scopes to capture unit-price efficiencies, unexpectedly difficult site or subsurface conditions (for example, the pier parking structure required barge/crane access that doubled bid costs), and multi-year delays between grant award and actual bidding that expose projects to price escalation. Staff also walked through examples where council explicitly approved additional scope and where staff paused and re-bid projects when bids exceeded budget.
Staff said software tools now being evaluated (ClearGov and other project-tracking/GIS tools) should improve public visibility of project status, funding and change-order history. The commission voted to receive and file the CIP processes presentation.
