Collaborative Government Blog

Hamilton County Saved $250,000 on a 1R Paving Project.

The Kansas Collaborative has been saying for some time that the 1R Project could mean real savings to counties. Now we are beginning to get the documentation to back up this belief. As you read this article remember that KDOT has well over fifty projects every year that can produce savings if the road superintendent and the commissioners are willing to do their homework. The Kansas Collaborative and KDOT will do everything we can to let you know when KDOT will be in your county. Now enjoy reading about how Hamilton County took advantage of such a situation.

Delmar Hammond, Road Superintendent of Hamilton County, used the information provided by the 1R Project Notification Initiative of the Kansas Collaborative to save the county $250,000 on an 11 mile paving project located approximately 9 miles south of Coolidge. This initiative involves the advance notification of KDOT highway projects so that locals can take advantage of the economies involved in having a highway contractor move into the county.

Hamilton County is located next to the Colorado border west of Garden City, and has a population of 2,600. There is rarely a highway contractor set up in the county, so it is difficult to obtain good pricing on county projects. If a contractor bids a county project he has to include the mobilization cost of moving his operation to the county for just one project. Hamilton County needed to overlay 11 miles of road to some dairies that was getting heavy truck traffic. The estimated cost of the paving project was $2 million.

In 2006 Delmar was informed of upcoming KDOT projects in Hamilton County and he began forming a plan on how to use this knowledge to reduce the cost of the county’s paving project. He worked with his consulting engineer, Jon Halbgewachs of Kirkham Michael, to schedule the letting at the optimum time to receive the best bids. There were actually two highway contractors working in the county when the bids were received for the project, and they received 6 bids. The low bid was from APAC at a bid price of $1,750,000, APAC was one of the contractors working on a KDOT project in the county. This bid was $250,000 less than the initial estimate made two years earlier. This was a win-win situation, with APAC not having to include mobilization for the county project they could do the work cheaper and still make a profit.

Hamilton County also utilized the State Transportation Revolving Fund to finance the project rather than selling bonds locally. Use of the revolving fund resulted in a lower interest rate as well as legal fees involved in selling the bonds.

We want to congratulate Delmar Hammond and the County Commissioners on the success of their project. We hope that many other counties will take advantage of the 1R Project. Please feel free to call Norm Bowers (785-272-2585) or Joel Wright (816-914-5344) if you have questions.