Door County Administrator Mike Serpe contends an unnoticed provision to change statutory bidding requirements in the Senate's budget would make county construction costs soar.

In the email below sent to legislative leaders, the governor's office and others, Serpe lays out his points. He says the "onerous provisions defy any logical explanation, and to date, not even illogical explanations have bee proffered as to their existence."

Dear Legislative Leaders,

In the Senate Budget version, unexplained provisions relating to redefining the statutory bidding requirements mysteriously appeared.

In the redefinition the Senate has included provisions that require ALL Improvement work greater than $25,000 to be BID!

The key points here are

*The legal opinion says this statutory provision if adopted supersedes any and all other statutes relating to bidding including the intergovernmental cooperation Statutes.
*This provision would require County Boards to Bid all improvements over $25,000 and eliminates the ability of the County to do work on their own system with their own funds with their own crews.
*This also eliminates the ability of Counties to do work for Municipalities in their County and requires the Municipality to bid all improvements over $25,000.

Adding insult to injury, in 2. PUBLIC WORKS CONTRACTS AND BIDS -- RESPONSIBLE BIDDER (page 128-129) you will find the following language as well: Specify that if a "municipality" does not receive any responsible bids, it would be authorized to contract with another "municipality," other than a county, or perform the work directly without being subject to the competitive bid and lowest responsible bidder requirements.

These onerous provisions defy any logical explanation, and to date, not even illogical explanations have been proffered as to their existence.

We, and the people who pay the freight, deserve better than this.

Regards,

Michael J. Serpe
Administrator, County of Door


-- By Greg Bump