Under Chapter 556 of Florida Statutes, Contractors are required to notify Sunshine State One-Call of Florida (“Sunshine One-Call”) before it may begin any Work that involves underground excavation. After notification, Sunshine One-Call creates a ticket and notifies utility owners and state agencies within the area of an upcoming excavation project. To prevent damage to utilities, owners or state agencies must visit the site of excavation and mark all known utility lines within the area.

Currently, the Town of Miami Lakes has contracted with High Tech Engineering, Inc. (“High Tech”) to respond to Sunshine One-Call tickets and mark any Town-owned utilities within an applicable excavation site. Due to an increase in development, the Town has encountered an increase frequency of Sunshine One-Call tickets, which has caused the expenditure on this contract to reach the $25,000 threshold established in Section 7 of the Town's Procurement Ordinance, 12-142. Before the Town can expend any additional funds on utility locate services, and thereby continue marking our underground utilities at excavation sites, the Town Manager requires authorization to access the contract beyond the $25,000 threshold.

The current contract with High Tech is the result of a piggyback process initiated back in November of 2016. After our last underground utility locate services contract expired, Procurement conducted market research to find a suitable contract to piggyback from another governmental agency. The chart below contains the pricing for three competitively bid contracts for utility locate vendors serving South Florida.

Of all the contracts researched, a Lauderhill contract with Caltrop Corporation (“Caltrop”) had the lowest price for the services the Town required. However, when Procurement reached out to Caltrop, the company was unwilling to extend the same pricing to the Town. With Caltrop declining to provide service to the Town, Procurement followed up with the next lowest pricing available, which was a Broward County (“Broward”) contract with High Tech.

Broward issued a formal competitive solicitation for underground utility services on April 1, 2015. At Bid Opening, Broward received five bids from Marlin Engineering, F.R. Aleman & Associates, High Tech Engineering, Craig A. Smith and Associates, and Caltrop Corporation. Broward awarded several contracts based on service “Groups.” High Tech Engineering was awarded a contract for Group 1, which includes the routine services used here in the Town. The Broward contract was awarded on August 11, 2015 and will remain in effect until August 21, 2018.

High Tech agreed to provide services to the Town in accordance with their contract with Broward County. Since November of 2016, the Town has been maintaining its utility locate services through this agreement. Due to an AT&T fibernet expansion project throughout Town, we have experienced a rise in Sunshine One-Call tickets. As a result, the Town's expenditure on the contract has approached the $25,000 threshold for piggyback contracts executed under Section 7 of the Town's Procurement Ordinance, 12-142. To continue accessing this contract and to maintain our current level of utility locate services, it is now recommended that the Town Council authorize the Town Manager to expend funds beyond the $25,000 threshold, as long as funds are budgeted for this purpose. It is important to note that due to AT&T Communication Service Tax payment to the State, and proportionate pass through to the Town, the Town cannot charge AT&T for the utility locate services required for their expansion project.