Capital Projects Committee recommends Select Board award construction contracts after edits trim GHD scope

The Capital Projects Committee voted June 24 to recommend that the Select Board award construction-phase and collection-system contracts for the town's treatment plant and collection system after staff described contract edits that reduced consultant overlap.

Jackie, speaking for project staff, said she amended GHD's documents so bidding services were added as an amendment to its design contract while the resident project representative (RPR) responsibilities were removed from GHD and reassigned under the OPM/Apex work. "We made sure the RPR was taken out of the GHD contract and all the responsibilities were split appropriately," Jackie said, adding that the changes eliminated overlapping services and produced a savings of "almost $750,000." Jackie also said GHD remains the engineer of record and will continue submittal reviews, RFIs and startup and commissioning support as design engineer.

The changes prompted committee questions about where the RPR work would live and whether the Apex/OPM contract increased to cover that work. Jackie said Apex added limited junior-engineer coordination (roughly 400 hours) for RPR-related tasks but that the overall OPM contract value did not materially increase, leaving a net savings for the project. Committee members pressed staff to quantify invoicing and workload assumptions; Jackie said GHD had identified expected volumes (she cited about 350 submittals) and allocated hours per submittal so invoicing could be tracked against quantified expectations.

Members also scrutinized billing language. One member said the current wording reads to them as a minimum $4.2 million obligation; staff noted invoicing historically has been built on time-and-materials detail even where the contract reads otherwise and suggested adding explicit "time-and-materials, not to exceed" language if the committee wants that clarity. Committee members discussed whether to limit annual billing-rate increases (the contract's C1.01 section sets annual updates each July 1 but includes no strict cap); staff explained industry practice rarely includes strict caps but that budgets typically build in assumed annual increases.

Staff clarified responsibilities for special inspections and testing, telling the committee that third-party testing agencies will perform compaction, concrete cylinder, masonry and other special inspections required by the Massachusetts building code and that Apex (OPM) will coordinate the testing so the engineer can rely on results to sign control affidavits and final certifications. "Compaction testing has to be done by a third-party consultant," a staff member said, adding that the OPM will arrange testing and the engineer will review results before final certification.

Committee members recalled a past project's window-testing failures and asked that staff monitor sampling and require additional testing if early sample failure rates are high. Staff agreed to confirm specification sampling rates and to require follow-up testing if failures occur.

Staff also noted procedural next steps: contracts over $1 million require Select Board approval, and SRF (the State Revolving Fund) needs the engineering contract before authorizing general-contractor contracts. The committee chair said staff would ask the Select Board to award the contracts that evening so SRF paperwork could be filed by Friday. A motion to recommend all contracts listed on the agenda was moved and seconded; the committee conducted a roll call and recorded affirmative votes and the meeting chair declared the recommendation unanimous. The committee adjourned after confirming the SRF timeline and a plan for project communications.

The committee's recommendation moves to the Select Board for final award decisions and SRF submission; staff said they will prepare a communications plan and a public project web page as construction begins.