Henderson County Engineer Nick Stallings is taking a new approach to issues that often arise with ditches throughout the county.
Instead of the often cumbersome process of finding a contractor to work on individual ditch obstructions—which can take weeks to get approved—Stallings has instead instituted a bid process for the types of obstructions that regularly recur.
With the bids in place, each time an obstruction on the list occurs somewhere in the county, Stallings can call the winning bidder for that type of obstruction and notify them of the job. From there, the contractor has ten days to complete the project, Stallings said.
If the contractor can’t get to the job because, for instance, the company is too backed up with other work, then the county’s job would go to the next bidder, Stallings said.
KRS stipulates that all purchases of a local government above the $40,000 mark must go through a competitive bidding process (with some exceptions). With this process, however, a contractor who won the pre-work bids can continue to work once payments have gone beyond $40,000 because the competitive bidding process has already occurred.
“I’d like to see this get off the ground and do well,” Stallings said.
The types of obstructions that were bid out include a tree obstruction, cutting and removal; tree obstruction, cutting and no removal; tree obstruction with no cutting but with removal; tree obstruction with no cutting or removal; vegetation obstruction with removal; vegetation obstruction without removal; slope erosion pulled back on the slope; and surcharge for long-reach excavator.
O’Nan Excavating Service out of Waverly won six of eight bids, while Glassco Excavating of Henderson won the other two. See the chart for information on the bids.
