Developing Municipal Sweeping Contracts
Honest communication,
insistence on realistic specs, and
impeccable performance are the keys.
by Ranger Kidwell-Ross
Some municipalities know very little about their real costs.
The contractor and the municipality really need to be partners.
Since founding Ohio-based Contract Sweepers in 1960, Tom Maish, company president, says he has had quite a learning curve. They currently operate about 35 sweepers, many of which are in service in municipal work. In this candid interview, Maish shares with the industry some of the important information he has picked up along the way.
WORLD SWEEPER: Let's start from the beginning: Where do you start in getting municipal contract work?
Maish: I'll tell you where I personally started: one of our first contracts was with a town that I bid on by the curb mile and practically lost my shirt!
In the real world, there is no single emphasis that works every time, but often the first place to start is through qualifying both the municipality and your contact within it. For example, a city is probably a good prospect if it has financial problems, or tax problems or an enlightened management team that is willing to look at alternatives. It also doesn't hurt if their sweeper fleet is getting old. Conversely, if management is of the old style that believes in doing everything the way it has always been done, then you are going to work for a long time with quite possibly no return.
In short, if a city is flush with money and has management that likes to operate all their own equipment, then that's not a good place to spend your time. We have found that some municipalities know very little about their real costs. Some charge their gas and think that is their sweeping cost! Combine that with someone who is happy about the way things are going currently and you don't have a prospect.
WORLD SWEEPER: How do you find the right person to talk to, or get their attention in the first place?
Maish: Find someone in the organization who has a problem with the job now being done - someone with power. In cities, there seem to be a number of people who have titles but no power of decision-making. In the smaller cities, population under 10,000, the city manager is often the one who is eventually going to make the decision. For larger operations, ones with a street department, then you need to get to the equivalent of the service director level. Find the person whose responsibility it is to maintain the streets.
Another successful method can be to approach the service committee members on the city council. The council is responsible to the people, and often they are hearing things that the street department is not. Also, they have the power to bring it right to their board.
Years ago in a small town the mayor told me, "I flat out don't see any reason to street sweep in this town." Later I happened to be talking to a friend in that town who said that sweeping was an issue. He gave me the number of a guy on the service committee. When I told the committee member what I was proposing, he went right directly to council and they overrode the mayor. They wanted the city swept and in fact ended up doing it. It just took getting to the person with the hot button.
WORLD SWEEPER: How often do you run into a municipal director who doesn't want to give up his fleet of sweepers because managing them looks good on his or her resume?
Maish: Certainly some of what I call 'the old style' won't give up their sweepers, but there is a lot of change taking place in this area. Most are willing to take a stronger look at the benefits of contracting out their street sweeping.
WORLD SWEEPER: Once you have established the viability of a prospect and found management willing to listen, what's next?
Maish: The next thing is to establish a set of workable bid specs. Along with this it is very important to develop a straightforward approach and relationship. Left to themselves, municipal employees will often write very restricted specifications which are designed to help them cover themselves. One of the best things a contractor has to offer are suggestions and the freedom to help them save money.
It's much better for both the bidding contractors and the municipality to work together to develop the job specifications. Only if a municipality is willing to work with the contractor(s) to come up with the best scenario is the outcome going to be maximized. Usually a good contractor can do a better job, save the city money, or both, but only if their hands aren't tied from the outset. If it is approached as an adversarial relationship, then it will not work, any more than will any situation that is adversarial.
WORLD SWEEPER: Are there suggestions that you would typically make on the contracting side, or advantages that you feel you can bring to the table?
Maish: The answer is almost always "yes," as long as I can get involved before the specs are written. There needs to be a good evaluation process. Because the municipality has been doing the job in-house, however, they may not know how to obtain the desired result. Unfortunately, the first approach is often to write in a large number of restrictions: high performance bonds, ridiculous insurance requirements and so forth.
Using performance bonds as an example: If it's a reputable sweeping company with a track record that comes out on top in the bidding over other such companies, there's no need for a performance bond. If the winning contractor doesn't do a good job, you can be certain that one of the other guys will be glad to come in and take over with no disruption of service. In that scenario, the city is just paying extra for a bond (since it's included in everyone's bid) that simply isn't necessary. That can be a very costly component, especially for smaller cities. These bonds also make contracting look like a higher cost option than it really is.
Another area that is much better discussed up front is the proposed sweeping schedule. By entering into a mutual dialogue about what the city really wants, you can bypass some spec writer who really doesn't have a clue about what's needed except to make sure that he/she doesn't get blamed later. If you don't have good communication, it's awfully easy to be faced with a set of specs that can't be bid on at any reasonable price.
For example, we have had clauses that said "no sweeping when it is below 35 degrees." We had to wait for a municipal employee to tell us if we could sweep. That doesn't always make sense. If it is dry and not freezing then I can do a good job, and I don't want someone else - whose money, equipment and reputation is not on the line - to decide for me. That's part of the expertise that I can bring to a contract.
Another area is the setting of standards for what constitutes clean. Certainly every contract needs a sensible inspection time and, once established, it needs to be adhered to. It's in everyone's best interest to arrange that an automatic re-sweep will be done if the job is inspected within four hours and is found to be unacceptable, for example. On the other hand, if the municipality comes in and says "Well, it was two days before we got around to it and it was not acceptable," then there is no way to know what happened in those two days. If the contract has a 48 hour clause, or if a 4-hour clause is administered as though it were a 48 hour clause, the contract will certainly cost the city more. In short, I want a performance-based analysis, as opposed to a bunch of nit-picky rules to follow.
WORLD SWEEPER: How can you approach the municipal staff on these topics without having them think you are out to get a spec written for yourself, as opposed to having one that is being written for the good of the city?
Maish: We have certainly written performance specifications which were used, and yet gotten no preferential treatment for all the work we have done. Frankly, that can be a real problem. To allay those fears, your approach has to be very professional. In the best case, the contractor and the municipality really need to be partners. And it has to be recognized that some things are truly beyond the control of the contractor.
Again, it is only through honest communication that the best solutions can be found. Take, for example, any charges for water and use of hydrants. In most cases, it is simply going to cost everyone less if a contractor uses city water and takes it from fire hydrants. However, hydrants are often owned by the fire department and the water by the water department. You have to have special permission or you could go to jail for tapping a hydrant. And the fact is that one city office can get access from another one much more easily than can a contractor. That's the kind of sensible understanding that is ever so much easier if it is made before a spec to the contrary is offered out to bid.
WORLD SWEEPER: We've covered many peripheral items, but not the sweeping itself. Do you help routinely to develop the guidelines for sweeping requirements?
Maish: Oh, sure. We started off using ones that were developed in conjunction with the National Contract Sweepers Institute (NCSI) and the American Public Works Association (APWA) as the groundwork. The APWA especially is an organization that municipalities recognize. Now we can do it on our own because we've been at it for so long.
WORLD SWEEPER: And dumping costs?
Maish: We try to have the city provide both the water and the dumping. Again, the municipalities essentially have control of those things. A good method is to charge a certain amount for dumping unless the cost goes above a predetermined dollar amount per ton. If that happens, we want the right to reopen the contract for the additional amount.
Again, the best way is to work it out in the context of building a partnership. We say, "Look, it is going to cost us the same amount for disposal as it will cost you, so why don't you just assume it?" In many cases they won't. Often it can come down to a business decision. If you don't want the bid the way it ends up getting written, then you can't afford to bid on it.
Bidding changes with every city: the layout and type of streets, type of subdivisions, whether they require posting, etc. The volume of leaves is also a huge variable, and in our state now you can't put leaves into a landfill, so that's another cost issue. There is no magic curb-mile formula. There never has been and I doubt if there ever will be. It's something that experience brings.
WORLD SWEEPER: Is there anything you'd like to say on the topic of equipment? Do you prefer broom over air, for example?
Maish: First of all, before someone expects to get a street sweeping job, they need to own a street sweeper. I know that sounds obvious, but I've seen people look silly ahead of time because they didn't have the right kind of equipment, and silly after the fact because they didn't understand that their street sweepers would cost more in maintenance than equipment used just in parking lots.
Whatever you run, it's got to be built to do the job at hand and kept well maintained. I don't think there is one sweeper that fits all, any more than one truck fits all. It depends on the job. We use both broom and air models.
WORLD SWEEPER: How about the company that has experience in sweeping, cleans major malls and such, but hasn't had municipal contracts? Have any advice about sidestepping the Catch 22 of not having experience because you can't get a chance at that first contract?
Maish: My advice to those people is to not bite off more than they can chew; go out and do the small jobs, the small towns. Develop a better track record that way. Not being able to get a contract may seem bad until you bid too low, get the job and then have to perform...and that absolutely kills the possibility of contracting for everybody.
One of the best ways for someone to get the experience they need is to find out what the 'bid required' amount is in their area. Here a contract under $10,000 doesn't have to be put out for bid. It is often possible to get work on projects where formal bids aren't required, and develop experience in that manner. A lot of small cities need to be swept a couple times a year. If you quote the right amount and they like what they see, then you can get hired right on the spot.
WORLD SWEEPER: So you're saying to get in the door with any kind of work you can.
Maish: Sure, and there are opportunities with more than just cities. For example, city sewer departments usually have a complex that needs to be swept. Technically, that is working for the city. Then there are townships with only a few curbed streets, and counties and other agencies have places to sweep. There are really many municipal opportunities.
Remember, though, you must do a good job. You need to show the city that you are not going to let them down. Mall managers can change each year, but city people are usually there for a long time. There is a good dialogue between them, a long 'group memory.'
WORLD SWEEPER: What should a contractor who is trying to get their first municipal experience emphasize in their portfolio?
Maish: A track record of dependability and performance. Managers are scared to death of someone dropping the ball on them because that makes them look bad. They must be convinced that it just won't happen.
Every aspect of the contract is important, not just the sweeping. We get very few calls about our sweeping; most complaints center around posting. Someone complains that they didn't see the sign when they came in at night and yet they got a ticket, and things like that. We get more of that type than complaints about sweeping by far. That is another aspect of the business that we've learned to handle. In many of the places we contract with, our phone numbers are posted in their directory. Any complaint calls come in directly to our office because the city or whoever doesn't even want to hear about it.
WORLD SWEEPER: What has your experience taught you about the value of posted parking?
Maish: We sweep several municipalities that get quite a bit of revenue from tickets, and frankly we can do a much better job without the cars there, too. Municipalities need to recognize that some of the cost of a sweeping program can be paid for through tickets from posted no parking, and the end result is much cleaner streets. Especially now with storm water runoff being such a big deal, it just makes good sense to have posted parking. Streets don't really get clean if the sweeper is constantly going in and out of parked cars. How can they?
If city officials decide to post for sweeping, though, they need good resolve to collect from those they ticket. It doesn't work if as soon as someone beefs then their ticket gets voided. That actually destroys the whole opportunity to keep the streets clean.
WORLD SWEEPER: Is there anything else we've left out?
Maish: Once you have the contract, you must do what you say you will. It is much better to under-promise and over-deliver than vice-versa. Municipal work can open many other doors for contractors who perform well.
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