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HomeMy WebLinkAbout~Master - Ames Public Library Board of Trustees Minutes of the Regular Meeting 12/15/2011Ames Public Library Board of Trustees Meeting Minutes December 15, 2011 The Ames Public Library (APL) Board of Trustees met in regular session on Thursday, November 17, 2011, in the Council Chambers of City Hall, 515 Clark Avenue, with Bradley, Budd, Campbell, Manus, Meier, Rawlins, Schill, and Stow in attendance. Manus arrived late. Luckett was excused. Library Director Art Weeks and Assistant Director Lynne Carey were also present. Call to Order: Board Vice President Stow called the meeting to order at 7:00 p.m. Adoption of Agenda: Moved by Campbell, seconded by Rawlins, to approve the agenda. Vote on Motion: 6-0. Motion approved unanimously. Approval of Minutes: Moved by Bradley, seconded by Schill, to approve the minutes of the meeting of November 17, 2011. Vote on Motion: 6-0. Motion approved unanimously. Public Forum: None Manus arrived at 7:03 p.m. Consent Agenda: Meier moved and Rawlins seconded adoption of a resolution approving the consent agenda: 1) Claims Report 11/1/11 – 11/30/11 2) Financial Reports Vote on Resolution: 7-0. Resolution adopted unanimously. Administrative Staff Report: Library Director Weeks summarized his written report, noting that funding from Story County is expected to be flat this year. The library’s Teen Advisory Group (TAG) and former library trustee Chuck Jons and his wife were all recently honored by the Story County Alliance for Philanthropy. Weeks said that the operating budget was reviewed with the Finance Department early in the month. Ames Public Library Friends Foundation Report: Stow reported that the fall fundraising campaign is currently in progress. A small book sale of special items brought in $1,100 and TAG also held a bake sale. Stow said that the youth have raised $1,100 for the library in the first six months of the year. The two TAG co-chairs, Divya Navi and Tripti Upreti, have now been hired to work in the circulation department, so new co-chairs are being sought. Library Building Project Update: Weeks said that fundraising is on track and the philanthropic group is discussing the timeline for the rest of the campaign. Grant writing, which was dependent on the outcome of the election, will begin now and work with individuals, corporations, and groups continues. Policy Review: Exam Proctoring Policy Moved by Campbell, seconded by Budd, to adopt a resolution approving the Exam Proctoring Policy as presented/amended. Weeks affirmed that staff was not recommending any changes at this time. Vote on resolution as presented: 7-0. Resolution adopted unanimously. New Business: Contract for Library Service for Story County for Fiscal Year 2012/13 Weeks explained that the annual contract requires the board to review the policy prior to February 1 of each year; however, no action is required. The eleven libraries in the county are all parties to the contract, which states that the libraries will serve the unincorporated areas of the county. The payment to each library is dependent on each one’s level of circulation. Stow asked if there was much fluctuation in the level of funding. Weeks said that the payment received is dependent on circulation, so it goes up and down, but is relatively flat. Last year APL received about $128,000. Construction Delivery Method for Library Renewal Project Trustee Manus said the committee had met to discuss some of the information it received from staff. The second session she attended was with Dean McCormick, the Director of Design and Construction Services for Facilities Planning and Management at Iowa State University. Manus said the committee determined the primary decision points and discussed them, but did not reach a conclusion about whether it would be preferable to hire a construction management agent or a general contractor. The committee members f elt it was important to have more input and collectively reflect on the matter. Trustee Meier added that she feels it is important to take the time to make the right decision and feel comfortable about it. There are a lot of decisions to be made and research to be done. Trustee Budd agreed, noting that there are plusses and minuses on both sides and he feels it might be something the entire board may want to weigh in on. Meier said the subcommittee would probably meet again between Christmas and New Years. Weeks said he had taken the liberty of inviting someone who is an advocate for General Contractor (GC) to make a presentation at an upcoming committee meeting. He added that two representatives from Cost, Planning & Management International, Inc. (CPMI), the cost estimating firm the library’s architect has been using for APL’s project, were present in the audience and had expressed willingness to field questions. For the sake of clarification, Weeks explained that under the GC model, one contractor would be selected by a bidding process. That contractor then becomes responsible for the entire project. If that turns out to be the chosen model, Weeks said it had been recommended that the library also engage an owner’s representative to work with staff and provide expertise. The Construction Management Agent (CMa) is someone brought in to manage the project and the other contractors that are brought in to do the work. The CMa can be selected in the same way an architect or other professional consultant would be. He or she then manages the construction contracts, with the contractors selected by lowest responsible bid. Every contractor has to provide his own performance bond and the CMa manages their work. Stow thanked the committee for its work thus far and invited the trustees to ask questions of Larry Gleason and Joe Gerleman from CPMI. Manus said it was her understanding that with a general contractor, the mark-up would be built into the bid, but she wondered about costs if the construction manager model were used during design and also during construction. She asked if it would be possible for CPMI to work with the architect to present a budget comparing the overall cost both ways. She also wondered if he could provide any information on how the methods compared on past projects. Meier added that the committee was familiar with accepting bids from a general contractor and knowing the cost in advance; they were not comfortable with the cost structure when a construction manager is used. Gleason stated that the cost management involves several things, and different delivery methods will affect how that cost management benefits the project. One of the benefits of the construction management approach is that there is a construction professional on the team with the architect during design to work on issues that might skew the cost at the time of bid. It allows for managing costs of alternates and anticipating problems prior to the bidding phase. Under Iowa law, the entire project has to be competitively bid, whether it is bid by one single prime contractor or through several contracts. Gleason said that if bids made by one single prime do not fit into the proposed budget, there are a number of dilemmas related to redesign and re-scheduling. The construction management approach does help control that problem up front. He said that Manus was correct in stating that a single prime contractor takes into account the administration of the subcontracts and his own risks in his bid. He emphasized that the documents have to be very clear and concise before the bid is let. If documents are not good, the single prime contract will be very difficult to manage. With construction management approach, the fee is built in for administering the subcontracts. There is a professional fee for the amount of hours the agent works (because he is serving as ad hoc staff). Gleason suggested that an appropriate approach to bidding could be to allow a single prime contractor to bid, and compare that to a combination of multiple prime contracts. He said CPMI has done this in the past. Sometimes the total cost of the construction management fee plus the bids of the combined multiple prime contractors is not lower than the single prime package bid. He cited a project done for the Linn-Mar School System where that was the case. Linn-Mar opted to use the single prime contractor, so the construction manager cut his fee because he was no longer administering the project. The construction management approach offers the opportunity to find out what the lowest possible bid was under either of the scenarios. Gleason commented on change orders that come along, once bids are in place and the project is on its way. He said change orders may be the result of unknown site conditions (such as old wiring or something hidden behind a wall), coordination issues (documents not clear or what bidders were expecting), or owner’s discretionary changes (things added later or revised as the project progresses). Gleason cautioned that with a single prime bid, every change will be marked up by the general contractor. In contrast, under the CMa approach, there would be no mark-up on the changes. The only time the CMa fee goes up is if project gets extended for reasons for which the CMa was not responsible – and the fee would increase because the job would then require more hours. When asked if the Construction Manager’s fee was a percentage of the cost of the total project, Gleason stated that CPMI never bases the fee on the cost of project. Typically, pre-construction and construction fees are based on the hours the manager is anticipated to work and a maximum fee would be determined. He said sometimes it could be converted to a lump sum fee, but Gleason said he would not recommend using a percentage of construction cost because then there is no incentive for the construction manager to keep costs low. Manus inquired if it would be feasible to change construction managers, if the project were started with one that the library ended up not liking. Gleason said that CPMI had not had that experience. More frequently, he sees projects that have started with the one single prime approach with a general contractor and then switched to CMa because of problems with bids. Gleason added that a professional services contract of this type would typically have a “termination for convenience,” which is for the owner. However, the owner has to be in default for the CMa to walk away. Trustee Schill asked what sort of communication should be practiced between the CMa, the owner, and the architect. Gleason replied that in the pre-construction period, the design team works with owner and the CMa tries not to get in the way; rather, he stays in the loop so that he is aware of any design changes or cost changes. The CMa should be doing the estimating because he will have to manage the costs later. Once the contractors are involved, the CMa takes the lead and conversations should go through the CMa. Any changes in the project will happen with owner approval. Gleason added that the CMa should provide monthly status reports, field reports, photos, and keep basic communication in a project database which is accessible to the committee, the architects, and the owners. At a minimum, the owner should expect monthly reporting on financial status, schedule status, and contract status. The database also includes warranties and other information for the owner’s records, and it gets turned over to the owner at the end. Asked how often the architects should be expected to be on site, Gleason said once a week, at minimum. The architects should attend construction meetings and put together a field report of how their observations match up with the drawings. The construction manager takes over some of the responsibilities so that the architect will be freed up to spend more time on quality control, submittal review, and making sure the work is being done properly. The construction manager is on site every day and has a feeling for how much progress has been made on construction and what should be paid on a monthly basis. Trustee Meier asked about reimbursable expenses and controlling them. Gleason said that reimbursables are a tricky thing. Most contractors consider reimbursables to be: field superintendents, field engineers, the jobsite trailer and equipment that does not stay with the job when it’s complete. Typically, in a CM Agent role, the reimbursables are the office and things that they need to perform their job on site. All of the labor should be included in the base fee. Gleason cautioned that when the board selected a CMa, it would want to make sure to clarify what was considered reimbursables versus labor on the project. He said that contractors who do CMa work will sometimes include field staff in with their reimbursables because that’s what they do as a general contractor. Manus asked Gleason how much contingency should be included on a project such as this. He stated that the Construction Manager functions as ad hoc staff and serves as “your insurance policy,” whereas a GC picks up the risk and you are paying him for that. Gleason said he would say three to five percent (3-5%) minimum on a remodeling project. He said he did not do the estimating on the APL project, but he guessed the library would be at the low end of the range because the addition is fairly new and there have not been many projects in the interim. Stow stated that the subcommittee would meet again and asked staff to look at scheduling a special meeting of the full board the first week of January so that the project does not get delayed. Appointment of Director Evaluation Committee Stow said that he, President Luckett, and Sherry Bradley would be serving on the committee. Trustee Comments: Schill thanked Ames voters for giving the library bond question a 76% approval. Manus acknowledged Art and Lynne for spending time with the construction delivery committee and providing so much information. She also congratulated the Teen Advisory Group for their honor. Meiers said there is a lot to learn and much work ahead, but she is certain the library will come out with a great project. Adjournment: The meeting was adjourned by consent at 7:41 p.m. The next regular meeting will be on Thursday, December 15, 2011, at 7:00 p.m., in the Council Chambers of City Hall, 515 Clark Avenue.