HomeMy WebLinkAbout1996-08-19 Memo August?3, 1996
TQ. 4lreor J rrr AAaass
FROM
g Peter L� Nomeister, General Manaer
S.UBJEGT; (Ise of aontr d.:service
An issue has been raised regarding the use of local contractors to provide services for the
District. Over the years we have found that it is clearly in the public interest to make use
of the services that contractors provide. Without the help of private contract firms we would
not be able to accomplish many of our tasks.
However, we do not use contractors to do everything. There are tasks that we are able to
do with District staff quicker, more thoroughly, and for less money than can be done
through contract service. We are constantly evaluating this "do or buy" decision, and we
�,.. make changes in our procedures as new information is available.
In this memorandum I would like to describe some of our current practices and the reasons
for them. Truckee Donner PUD maintains two separate maintenance and construction
crews, one for electric system tasks and the other for water system tasks. These crews
are supported by several different types of private contractors. This memo focuses
primarily on the water crew.
Our water crew consists of a Superintendent, a crew foreman who supervises six
technicians, a system planner and a pump station operator. The foreman and his crew of
six perform many daily maintenance and construction tasks on the water distribution
system. They repair leaks; install new services; install service laterals and main line taps;
inspect the work of contractors; perform USA notifications; repair damaged hydrants,
valves, and pressure reducing stations; clean water storage tanks; and provide support to
the pump station operator. In the winter our crew continues to perform leak repairs and
we are able to redirect our attention the to inside of our water pump stations. We find that
Truckee contractors remain busy year round, so our water crew is also busy year round
providing water services to builders. We also use the winter to perform upgrades on
commercial water meters. They also clean snow from the District headquarters building
and from the district water pump stations. As time permits they clean snow from hydrants
as a service to the Truckee Fire Protection District. In recent years we have not been able
to adequately perform all of these services because privately contracted pipeline
,., replacement crews have required closer inspection and system operation. During 1996
and 1997 the work of Southwest Gas pipeline crews will keep our water crew busy with
USA notifications and inspection of common trench areas.
To support the work of our water crew we maintain certain pieces of heavy equipment. We
have a ten-wheel dump truck, a six-wheel dump truck and two backhoes. The two
backhoes are also equipped with one yard buckets for loading. During the winter months
we lease a loader to help with snow removal.
The dump trucks are used for hauling materials to and from construction sites. They haul
backfill material and cold patch to sites of leaks, main line taps and later or main line
installations. They also support the electric crew in their hauling needs. The two backhoes
have different uses. One is over fifteen years old and is used only when two hoes are
needed for a job. At other times it is kept at Southside well complex and used to load cold
patch or backfill into the dump trucks. The newer hoe is used for leak repair, installation
of services, and any construction jobs performed by our water crew. The hoe also is used
by the line crew when they construct underground facilities. In a normal year the dumps
and newer backhoe are used continually through the construction season. This year,when
our crew is primarily working with Southwest Gas contractors, we use that equipment less
often.
The question sometimes asked why we do not use contractors exclusively to perform the
construction and maintenance work of the water system. Some of the work we do is after
hours emergency repair work. We find that we cannot get a contractor to respond after
hours as quickly as our own crew responds, so our customer service is better if we do the
work ourselves. Installing water system facilities is important to our ability to provide
service to our customers. Having the ability and expertise to do so is a core competency
that we need to maintain. We need to be able to perform the basic functions of our
business in-house. We find that we are able to perform these tasks quickly, more
thoroughly and with better attention to quality than is done by a private contractor.
We do use contractors to supplement our water crew during periods of peak need. During
the busiest parts of each season we use contractors to do part of our leak repair, part of
our snow removal, part of our water system construction. Private contractors do all of our
permanent patch paving work.
Another question that comes up from time to time is why we lease a loader each winter and
perform part of our own snow removal. Briefly stated, we find that at a few locations we
need to have snow removed quickly and thoroughly. We cannot wait for a private
contractor to finish work on other customers before responding to us. Our headquarters
building needs to be cleaned quickly and continuously during a snow storm. That building
is the center of our activity during a storm and we need unimpeded access to it. We have
,.1 found that when we used a private contractor to clear snow at our headquarters building
our own staff spent a great deal of time recleaning and widening the cleared ares. We also
found that private contractors were unable to respond as quickly and as often as we
needed, so we began to do the work ourselves with a leased loader. Once we made that
decision we found that it was better for us to clear snow ourselves from our pole yard,
which is another critical location for us during a storm.
We are sometimes criticized for moving our loader to different locations in town.
Contractors find that it is inefficient to move their equipment from neighborhood to
neighborhood because the road time represents unbilled hours for their equipment and
employees. We find that it is inefficient for us to have our crew waiting around until a
contractor has a chance to plow us out. We cannot let customers be out of power or water
so we use our crew to clear our high priority facilities so we can get right to work. We do
not need to clear all of our facilities during the storm. Some of our water pump stations can
wait for a few days after the storm leaves the area to be cleaned. We are able to schedule
our crew to clean those stations on a lower priority basis, and clean them at a lower cost
than using a contractor. And we clean them more thoroughly with less damage to our
facilities. During the past couple of years we have had to sue one contractor in small
claims court to collect money to pay for damages resulting from snow removal.
We have always used private contractors to clear snow from the access road to our electric
substations, but not within the substations. We do not want a snow removal contractor
in our substations where he could be seriously hurt or he could cause significant damage
to critical electrical facilities. We have always cleared the inside portion of the substations
ourselves. The leased loader cuts our time by half or more in cleaning substations.
Once we had a loader cleaning the District headquarters building, the pole yard and the
inside of electrical substations we found that we could do a far better job of cleaning water
pump stations with the loader. Water pump stations can be cleaned a day or two after the
storm ends, after our more pressing snow removal needs are satisfied. We find that by the
time a storm clears out of Truckee there can be several feet of snow on the ground. The
loader is heavy enough to handle that kind of deep snow. We find that our crew can clear
snow from all those sites for the same cost as a private contractor, and we do it more
timely and with less damage to our facilities.
For those sites where we do use a private contractor to plow snow there are very few
contractors willing to do our work. The snow removal contractors tend to remain in one
geographic area and perform work there. For example, one contractor may like to stay in
Tahoe Donner, while another may stay at Donner Lake. They get enough work in those
areas that it is not efficient to move their equipment around town to other locations. The
contractor who plows our Tahoe Donner substation serves other customers in Tahoe
Donner, the contractor who plows our Donner Lake substation stays in the Donner Lake
,,.. area, and so on. When we have bid snow removal at these locations in the past we have