City Commissioners will be asked to award a $3,544,750 contract to Wadsworth Builders during their Feb. 20 meeting for the Great Falls Police Department evidence expansion project.

Commissioners were scheduled to award the contract during their Feb. 6 meeting, but delayed the decision so staff could review a protest by the other bidder, James Talcott Construction.

GFPD has faced increasing overcrowding in its evidence storage and processing areas over the years.

“More burdensome retention requirements and increases in case numbers have exacerbated the problem, making the need for addition space critical,” according to city staff.

City postpones contract award for GFPD evidence building

In April 2022, commissioners selected the expansion as a top priority project for American Rescue Plan Act, or federal COVID relief, funds.

The project includes the construction of a roughly 8,000-square-foot addition onto the south side of the existing GFPD building.

In February 2023, the city hired BSpark Architecture to design the expansion.

City staff and BSpark reviewed the bids and recommended awarding the contract to Wadsworth.

The bid specifications manual stated that bids should be separated into three components, the base bid plus contingency for construction; a bid for the cost of adding a dumbwaiter to the project; and a bid for adding fencing and gates to the project.

City likely to postpone GFPD evidence building construction award

The base bid should have the base bid, which should include a 2.5 percent miscellaneous contingency.

While reviewing the bids, staff noticed that Wadsworth hadn’t incorporated the contingency into the main base bid line, so once added, their base bid was higher than Talcott’s.

Wadsworth’s base bid, adjusting to include the contingency was, $3,331,250 and Talcott’s was $3,300,500.

Wadsworth’s bids for the alternatives were $127,00 and $85,800 respectively, bringing their total bid to $3,544,750.

Talcott’s bids for the alternatives were $164,00 and $104,000, bringing their total bid to $3,568,500.

City Commissioner to consider $3.5 million contract for GFPD evidence addition

Had the contract been awarded solely on the base bid, Talcott would have been the low bidder, but staff said that the budget amount allowed for both additives to be included, making Wadsworth the low bidder.

Talcott Construction’s lawyer argued that Wadsworth’s bid should have been disqualified for not conforming to the specific instructions and therefore was not “responsive” under state and federal law.

City staff reviewed the bids and the protest and disagrees with Talcott’s lawyer. Staff finds that the determination as to whether a bid conforms to the specifications is “fully within the discretion of the city.”

City approves contract for GFPD evidence addition

“It is the opinion of city staff that the city is within its rights to allow correction of an obvious nonconformity in Wadsworth’s presentation of its bid, and to allow the presentation of the bid, as adjusted, to reflect the bidder’s intent. Further, in this case, the adjustment did not, as counsel for Talcott argues in his February 5, 2024 letter, create an uneven playing-field or create some advantage for Wadsworth in the bidding process,” staff wrote in their agenda report.

The bid is to be awarded based on the entire project and in that regard, Wadsworth was the low bidder, according to staff.

Staff is continuing to recommend that commissioners award the project to Wadsworth, as they had for the initial meeting on Feb. 6.