"But to put an exact number on it is a hard thing to do."

I am reprinting this article in its entirety since the Almanac does not archive their articles.  It's a keeper.

ML will rebid high school project to multiple contractors

By Nick Lewandowski For The Almanac writer@thealmanac.net

Mt. Lebanon school board meeting July 18 was largely a tale of two bid structures, with discussion of whether the district's high school renovation should be rebid to a single general or multiple prime contractors. The project--for which bids came in some $15 million over budget in April--was previously bid to general prime contractors. Construction manager PJ Dick and architecture firm Celli-Flynn Brennan recommended the district make the switch to cut costs.
"The advantage with multiple primes is that the subcontracting community will generally give a school district a lower bid than they will a general prime contractor," said PJ Dick's John Taormina. "One reason is that dealing with a district they're closer to the money. They know they're going to get paid every 30 days."
PJ Dick estimated the district could save $1 million by shifting to multiple prime contractors. Celli-Flynn's estimate is even higher--architect Bill Brennan said some subcontractors mark their bids up as much as 3 to 5 percent when bidding to a single general contractor.

"But to put an exact number on it is a hard thing to do," Taormina emphasized.
Board member Elaine Cappucci questioned why the possibility of such significant savings had not been brought to the board's attention before the project initially went out to bid. "With everything we've been through on the project cost savings has come up every other sentence. Why do you suddenly recommend switching?" she asked. "The project was on budget then," Brennan replied.
Using multiple prime contractors may provide cost savings, but also presents risks in terms of coordination and scheduling, officials said. Board members were quick to recall the pain associated with managing the district's elementary school renovations, which were bid to multiple prime contractors. Under multiple primes the onus would be on the district and PJ Dick to manage the project. In the words of board member Dan Remely, there would be no "single neck to choke."
"Multiple primes is going to give us a lot of headaches," said board member Susan Rose, participating by phone. "But I'm willing to handle these to help save taxpayer money."
Ultimately the majority of the board adopted Rose's position, with the exceptions of Dale Ostergaard and Faith Stipanovich. Both Ostergaard and Stipanovich expressed concerns that the risks outweighed the potential savings. "I am not convinced there is a savings that makes me want to jump on with multiple primes," Stipanovich said.

1 comments Rebid? : 7/20/2011
There is no need to rebid anything. All the school board needs to do is put the question of whether or not to build what they want on the ballot. It's called a "referendum". Something that most states require and allows the community to decide. Local school boards do not want you to know this because they think they know better than you. I think it's because they are power hungry.
Charles Hanson Jr.

John Taormina said it is a hard thing to do? How did Baldwin do it? Baldwin-Whitehall Cost Comparison

http://www.thealmanac.net/alm/story10/07-20-2011-ML-school-project

It's not sitting well with us, members of the School Board.

Letters, documents, and articles are coming my way at a fast pace this morning.  (Not complaining, keep 'em coming!!!) They support Dirk Taylor's letter to the School Board. Maybe it is too much to put in one post, but I thought I would do it anyway.  They are not listed in any particular order.  I don't want to bury Dirk's letter, so make sure you read it!

From Steve Diaz:
Members of the Board:  Given your new decision to break up your project so that you hire multiple prime contractors, can you explain how you justify the redundant administrative and overhead costs, the added delays and costs of likely jurisdictional disputes, and other unnecessary cost-overruns that are invariably associated with such an approach?  What benefit do you see in doing this?  You have gone from tone-deaf to the legitimate concerns of the community to a place that has no connection to reason or common sense.  It is time to look forward to the high likelihood of continued frustration and failure as you mire yourselves down in one ill-conceived step after another:  It is time for a breather -- you should take at least 6 months to study the options and consider how your plan can be made more efficient (not less so) while taking immediate steps to minimize the financial damage that your premature issuance of bonds has caused.  The clock may be running on a process you have played with and mismanaged for years, but simply doing "something" is no guarantee of success.  In fact, it would be good to do what most decision makers would do in a situation such as the one in which you now find yourselves:  go back over what has gone wrong so far, change the team that has been unable to pull it together (including your own membership and committees, not just pointing fingers at third parties), and consider what merit there may be in the advice and opinion you have consistently rejected out of hand.  If you are even now not willing to admit that your building project has been mishandled right along, you underscore your own ineffectiveness.  There is no reason for the public to have any confidence in you or your process.  If you cannot change course, then you must resign in recognition of the totally failed leadership you have offered this community.  This is the third time I have called on you (yes, all of you) to resign for malfeasance, and I will continue to do so if you cannot find a way not to continue doing that which has led to unmitigated failure to date.  You know what they say about people who continue doing the same ineffective thing over and over again expecting a different result.  Look in the mirror, look to the paltry number of "supporters" for your project and ask yourselves "why have so many interested and concerned citizens simply given up on the school board".  There is a reason people are walking away:  no one believes that you listen or respond to anything but your own voice.  You cannot believe you are admired or successful stewards of this community's affairs.

In the meantime, I have to ask, again, why you do not answer the questions I have posed about Federal arbitrage penalties the school board may face on the bonds you issued almost 2 years ago, how you can justify borrowing so much money when you did, and what you plan to do now about the cash- and debt-management fiasco in your building program.  Just a reminder: you also refuse to say how you will pay for the pension funding obligation given the fact that no "bailout" is on the horizon.  Does such conduct strike any of you as responsible or worthy of public confidence?  You must recognize your own failures and take personal responsibility for them.

With Due Respect.  

Steve Diaz

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Here is the application waiver that Baldwin-Whitehall submitted to the PDE for their auditorium renovation after using multiple-prime contracts for their high school. Baldwin-Whitehall waiver See the PG article here.
Update: Letters from the Baldwin-Whitehall architect have been added here and here. 

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The Petersen Event Center was a public school multiple prime contractor project partly managed by P.J. Dick.  You cannot make this stuff up.  Read the PA Separations Act Report and Post Gazette articles.

http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/04102/299310.stm
http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/04103/299740.stm
http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/07121/782379-85.stm
http://www.postgazette.com/pg/05001/435755-85.stm