City secures savings on asphalt

RIDGELAND — Public Works officials here believe they will be able to stretch a dollar further this fiscal year after a recent round of term bids resulted in cheaper costs for some items.

Public Works Director Mike McCollum was happy to present the board with a variety of “competitive” bids for approval last month. Of note, McCollum said that asphalt came in at $2 a ton cheaper than last year. Adcamp, Inc. of Jackson was awarded bids for asphalt. McCollum said that they accepted bids as low as $88 a ton whereas last fiscal year they were paying about $90 a ton. High bids from competing APAC-Mississippi, also of Jackson, came in as much as $10 more.

Ward 1 Alderman D.I. Smith asked if they should accept the bids and not try to solicit another round of bidding as many of the term bids had only one bidder.

“I would think some of these would be sought after bids,” Smith said.

City Attorney Jerry Mills said that it would be proper to accept the bids since they were properly advertised. McCollum described the bids they received as competitive and said that it is not uncommon to receive only one bid on many of the particular items that were put up for bids.

All bids were approved unanimously on the consent agenda.

The city also approved a contract with Dickerson & Bowen Inc., of Brookhaven for asphalt materials and paving bids. This concerns asphalt picked up at their plant and loaded onto city trucks. 

Dickerson and Bowen beat out Adcamp and APAC for the bids. D&B beat the closest bidder, Adcamp, by about $0.50 in some cases with the largest margin of the dollars a ton for base course asphalt. APAC’s largest margin with D&B was $7.50 for surface course asphalt with a bid of $70 to D&B’s $62.50 a ton.

Adcamp was approved as an alternate.

City officials also approved a contract extension with Allen Engineering and Science for continued implementation of the city’s Stormwater Management Program. The extension will go into effect October 1 and goes through September 23, 2023. The total cost of the extension is $60,000 over the three-year period. The contract amount will increase by $500 a year costing the city $19,500 in FY 2021 and cost $20,500 in FY 2023.