Dallas Water Utilities seeks flexibility on price weighting for large procurements; committee discussion asks for safeguards

Dallas Water Utilities and committee members discussed a proposed change that would allow competitive sealed-proposal procurements to use a price weighting below the statutory 50% baseline on a project-by-project basis.

Utility representatives explained the statute sets 50% as the baseline weight for price in best-value procurements but that governing bodies may lower it to as little as 36.9 percent where public interest justifies that change. Dallas Water Utilities said it intends to use lower price weights—for example, 40% for complex facility projects—because large complex projects benefit from evaluating technical approach, schedule and experience alongside cost. The utility argued this method can attract more qualified firms and reduce change orders by using delivery methods that encourage collaboration.

Council members pressed staff on safeguards: how the city verifies that contractors do not charge higher per-unit rates than on other projects, whether respondents must disclose prior project costs, whether the city tracks past change-order histories and whether the city maintains a debarment mechanism. Utility staff said proposers must provide past project experience and references, the city maintains cost opinions of probable construction cost to benchmark proposals and staff check federal debarment lists; they confirmed the city may decline to award a project to a contractor with problematic performance, but they do not maintain a separate city debarment list.

What’s next: The committee discussion did not produce a vote in this meeting. Staff said they will continue to work with the city attorney and procurement offices on the delegation and any accompanying accountability measures.