I attended a municipal sewer authority meeting this week. It wasn’t my first. Not by a long shot. A group of civic minded volunteers authorized the spending of nearly $10 million. As these things go, it is a small project. As board members go, this group is enthused and engaged. They are working hard at what they believe best for their community.
In an effort to secure a 25% grant and 2% loan, the municipality voted to hire lawyers at a cost of $465,000. And, engineering services totaling $1.8 million. The regional health district will receive $494,000 to monitor construction.
Not counting the health district’s “force account expenditures,” the professional services overhead makes up 22% of the total project cost. Spending 22% to save 25% seems like a pretty good deal, especially since some engineering and legal work needs to be done, regardless of the funding source, does it not?
No. Not really.
But, by no means is this the “fault” of the volunteers who sit on the sewer authority. They are doing what they are supposed to do: put their faith and trust in the government agencies that exist to serve them and rely upon the professional guidance that the professionals they employ give them.
Fact is, there is not so small hidden cost that nobody told them about: the inflated cost of compliance with federal and state Clean Water funding requirements. These costs cause project costs to skyrocket. Please read on…
We don’t partake of Clean Water funds. Our clients fund our work without big government money. You’d think it would cost them more. It should. But, since the system is broken, they realize huge savings. If we can’t deliver a project for a 75% savings, we take a pass. Yes, you read correctly. We get the job done for one-fourth the cost of traditional Clean Water funded projects, or not at all. Make no mistake, our designs are not “cheap.” We are very big on instrumentation; more so than most design engineers. To save clients money, we use pre-engineered, pre-fabricated components. Mostly, we save client money by reusing existing equipment differently.
And, we get the job done a LOT faster.
The municipality mentioned above has spent a decade getting their funding application approved. For the past ten years, the pollution that the project is supposed to remove has been ongoing. Now, ten years later, and at a considerably higher cost than going it without Uncle Sugar, the municipality is finally about to get a shovel in the ground.
If you need your toilet paper holders made of brass and curbing made of granite, feel free to stand in line for some Clean Water funds. If you want a treatment plant that does an outstanding job of making clean water, faster and less expensively, go without federal and state funds.
Better, give me a call. Let me show you what we can do.
Thanks for reading.
Grant