WESTFIELD – The Finance Committee will review a $326,167 appropriation submitted by the Purchasing Department to the City Council at its Sept. 4 session to allow the city to enter into a contract to provide building and equipment maintenance, funding that was cut during the FY 2015 budget review process in June.
Purchasing Director Tammy Tefft said this week that the appropriation is the exact amount cut by the Finance Committee during its budget review in June when the committee requested Tefft to rebid the maintenance contract.
“They cut the money and told me to bid out the contract and come back to them, Tefft said Monday. “We opened the bids on Aug. 27 at 2 p.m. There was only one bidder, Siemens, with a bid at the same amount.”
The Siemens contract is for maintenance of HVAC and controls recently installed in buildings throughout the city under the energy efficiency program. The maintenance is required to maintain equipment and system performance guarantees.
Finance Committee members, and several other City Councilors, attending the June 10 review of the Purchasing Department budget, questioned a $326,167 building repair and maintenance account line item in the proposed 2015 fiscal year budget.
Tefft said that money is the first year of a five-year contract with Siemens, the energy consultant which recently completed an upgrade to the energy systems in school and municipal buildings.
“We’ve spent all of this money, and that $23 million doesn’t include the Massachusetts School Building Authority’s funding for schools, but we’re still not maintaining all of the stuff,” Tefft said in June. “There are 1,500 pieces of major equipment in 23 facilities under energy management.”
Tefft said there is no commitment with Siemens for years two through five.
“All of that is contingent upon funding,” Tefft said.
Finance Committee member and Ward 5 Councilor Robert Paul Sr., then questioned how the city could proceed with the significant maintenance contract without seeking competitive bids for that work.
Tefft said that much of the energy efficiency control systems are proprietary to Siemens, but that Paul’s concern has also been an issue within her own department.
“We’re still going back and forth on those years two through 5,” Tefft said. “I want to see the cost go down, but as the age of the equipment increases, the cost of maintenance will go up.”
“We have not been able to fund maintenance,” Tefft said, noting that many departments “are reactive, not proactive and contact a vendor only when there is a problem.”
Tefft said that the Siemens contract will be cost avoidance for a municipal department.
“Those are maintenance costs departments will not need to have (in their individual budgets),” Tefft said. “This is the best course of action to get us up and running. My preference is to have a facilities department in-house.”
Finance member Ward 6 Councilor Christopher Crean said that the “$326,000 is sticker shock, but look at the number of buildings they will be maintaining. In hindsight that (Siemens contract) number is high. But not that high and Siemens is one of the premier companies doing this.”
Tefft said that the cost of maintaining municipal building is about $99,000, while the cost of maintaining the energy systems in the school district buildings is about $227,000.
City officials, in particular the City Council, are currently examining the possibility of a unified municipal building and grounds maintenance department because of the huge investment, totaling about $50 million, to repair buildings and grounds, as well as energy efficiency upgrade to city and school buildings.
The City Council is concerned that that investment may not be properly maintained in the future and deferred maintenance, which led to deterioration of the city and school buildings, may be avoided by creation of a dedicated central Maintenance Department.
