Competitive Price Bidding

I believe in Florida government contracts are issued by first selecting the most qualified candidate, then negotiating the price/scope. Government contracts are one of the few places you see that in practice. Most private contracts are put out for "bid".

Personally, I don't think bidding is unethical ... but then I again, I don't call it "bidding", I call it "submitting a proposal", but for practical purposes, I'm putting in my bid.

The move away from competitive bidding separates us into professionals that charge a fee for their services and everyone else.

0.02

> Personally, I don't think bidding is unethical ...

Agreed. In fact I find the admonishment of competitive bidding as unethical somewhat problematic. If we take "competitive bidding aims at obtaining goods and services at the lowest prices by stimulating competition, and by preventing favoritism" as a given, then how can we deduce that it is a moral good to encourage the opposite?

I see the underlying thinking that competitive bidding is unethical as:

1) Competitive bidding encourages the bidders to submit a low price
2) The pressure to submit a low price may induce some to cut corners
3) Let's save ourselves the trouble of determining who the bad apples are, and make up some reason to prohibit everyone form engaging in the practice
4) I know, lets just say it's unethical

(As an aside, David Hume wrote that -paraphrasing here- the problem with most statements of ethics is that they start with a series of statements about what "is" then suddenly jump to statements about "ought" with no rational path between the two)

> I believe in Florida government contracts are issued by first selecting the most qualified candidate, then negotiating the price/scope. Government contracts are one of the few places you see that in practice. Most private contracts are put out for "bid".
>
> Personally, I don't think bidding is unethical ... but then I again, I don't call it "bidding", I call it "submitting a proposal", but for practical purposes, I'm putting in my bid.

:good:

I believe you are correct.

We complain when the government overpays good-ole-boy consultants way too much for a product, and we complain when the government makes the private surveyor compete for prices. (We should complain, or it would happen more often, and I think you see a lot more fair prices when that happens.)

No client wants to pay you 10 times what a survey is worth, and no surveyor wants to lose money on a job due to underbidding. Most clients don't know what is entailed in a survey, and most professionals feel that their value is extremely high. It has to be up to you to convince your client of your worth if you don't want to have to underbid to get a job.

Think you have it Harris. Another reason that those working in construction need to have a certification system, not Professional Licensing. It is well on its way there today because of the cost of employing a license and then never seeing the Professional on the job.
jud

> Why do all of the government, (including State construction projects) require the surveying be competitive bid?
Not so when federal funds were involved, nor when state funds where involved in Oregon and Washington, I've worked in.

Local jobs, with no outside money, and where the city council is looking to cut costs, without any better understanding than the average homeowner shopping for a mortgage cert about procuring professional services do this. But these jobs are typically no more than a few thousand dollars worth.

I have a friend who is a City Engineer, it drives him mad. I lost a job in his city by $20 once. When the next phase of the same job came up 6 months later I put in a perfunctory bid (redated the first bid letter, basically), not expecting to have a chance (assuming the first winner would have the inside track) but just so I would continue to be invited. A different company beat out the first one by about $50, and got the job. My friend the engineer was really put off. He was going to have to put in way more than $50 worth of effort to bring this new winner up to speed on the job. But the council wanted the low bidder, period.

Another RFP I recall. This RFP was issued by a small city and 3 or 4 firms responded, including mine. Officially, pricing was not scored. But the low bidder got the job, because, according to the announcement, their proposal showed that they "best understood the needs of the job".

> Has anyone been successful in convincing anyone that surveying not be obtained through competitive bidding?
A while back, in Oregon, a state agency issued an RFP on a job, stating the selection criteria. Part of the scoring - albeit a small proportion - was price. The PLSO (state surveyor society) registered a complaint, the RPF was withdrawn, and a corrected one was later issued. So yes, this is an area where your state society can be effective.

I just got off the phone with a contractor complaining about my competitors number (bid price) for a job they have been awarded from the local Borough (county).He said it was the only price received; it was extremely high and really wanted a price from me. I have seen this often as the competitor knows I don’t participate in competitive bidding and so I believe prices the job to make as much money as possible. I refused to give the contractor a fixed price and told him that I would gladly give him an estimate and do the work by the hour.
I believe as a professional that I should be fair. I believe in getting paid an honest wage for an honest amount of work and don’t try and get as much as I can out of my clients.
Participating in competitive bidding means to me and most of the people that do it, - that all surveyors are created equal and deliver a like product.
I know that is not the case in my market.
I also found out yesterday that our state adopted a new definition of Land Surveyor recently and it has resulted in the dropping of the requirement of a Licensed Land Surveyor for construction surveying.
Now the licensing board only requires that the person doing the surveying have a contractor’s license.
I wish someone would have told me in college that Land Surveyors are not really professionals, I would have at least known what to expect. Instead the profession bullxxxx kids into thinking we are professionals equal to engineers and attorneys.
The engineers and the public just laugh.

what state are you in, if you don't mind divulging?

If you don't want to be involved in competitive bidding, then the best thing you can do is get out of the surveying business. Price matters to people and you are a fool if you think people are going to hire a surveyor with no regard to the price. Price is more of a factor to some parties than to others, but it is a factor to EVERYONE, including government jurisdictions that forbid competitive bidding.

The best example I have seen of how I think "It should be done" is to respond to RFPs with two envelopes. The first is a statement of qualifications, understanding of the project and resumes of employees. The second envelope contains the price to perform the duties. All the first envelopes are opened and the top three are selected. The second envelope of those not in the top three are returned unopened. The second envelope of the top three are opened and price is compared. Usually the top three are qualified and ethical competitors so the prices are "usually" within a small percentage of each other.

Andy

Alaska

In my foolish career I have seen many hundreds of surveyors hired on prior experience, merit, associations, convenience,ignorance and probably a few other reasons, - all these with no regard to price.
In my personal dealings I do not automatically assume that someone is going to take advantage of me if I don’t bargain with them about price. I trust them as a professional.

> In my personal dealings I do not automatically assume that someone is going to take advantage of me if I don’t bargain with them about price. I trust them as a professional.

:good:

> In my foolish career I have seen many hundreds of surveyors hired on prior experience, merit, associations, convenience,ignorance and probably a few other reasons, - all these with no regard to price.
> In my personal dealings I do not automatically assume that someone is going to take advantage of me if I don’t bargain with them about price. I trust them as a professional.

Wrong. Price matters. Now, those clients may have had enough surveys done by you that they know what one will cost, but I guarantee you they had an idea of what your services would cost before they gave you a notice to proceed. They will not pay you more than what they feel your services are worth.

Frankly, I just don't understand this attitude that we are supposed to be insulted by someone that takes price into consideration when choosing a surveyor. If someone wants the cheapest surveyor regardless of the price, good riddance. I don't want to work for those people anyway.

It sounds like you have a very different market and customer base than I do.

Knowing a price for a service and or having an idea of cost for a service is entirely different than competitive bidding which is based solely on price as the deciding factor.
I am also not offended by people shopping for the lowest price, I realize it takes different strokes for different folks, but I am not interested in working for someone who uses cost as a sole decision for services. Just as I wouldn’t use cost solely for the decision to use a certain dentist or attorney.
What I find frustrating is the same government that issues my license and regulations for that license, goes directly against those regulations and forces competitive bidding through certain funding processes. I believe that public money spent on surveying should not be decided by competitive bidding.

I agree. You're a fool if you don't think price matters. I don't know how many lawsuits are out there where people "trusted" the professionals that took them for every penny they were worth. Most the guys you "trust" is because they are good at convincing you they are trustworthy. Just because someone is a good surveyor doesn't mean they are a good salesman. Salesmen know how to work their way into people's trust that don't understand the value and convince them that they are trustworthy.

I wanted to have a tree cut down in my yard one year. I got several bids. They ranged from $200 to $1500. I certainly wanted to know what the difference was and why I should pay one guy that much more than the other. Was the expensive guy trying to rip me off? Was the bonded guy insured in case the tree crashed into my house? They all seemed to talk as though they were trustworthy.

How many people that need surveys done know the difference? Many times the cheap survey product looks just as pretty and nice as the expensive one. Do they know that one guy ran in an elevation from two NGS bench marks 2 miles away, and the other guy used an assumed elevation on a nail? Do they know that one guy researched a boundary back to origin, and the other guy just staked the latest vesting deed? Probably not.

should have guessed!

I consider my surveying to be a little more complicated and related to professional services than a tree cutter. However, I can see where someone that relates themselves to services like brush cutting would think that they should be solely judged on price alone.

That's nice, but it isn't remotely related to what Tom wrote.