Update of Standard Contract and Request for Proposals Templates:

1. APPROVE revised contract, invoice and request for proposals templates for use by the Transportation Agency for Monterey County in contracting for professional services; and,
2. AUTHORIZE the Executive Director to make minor revisions to the template agreements, if such changes do not increase the Agency’s net cost, subject to approval by Agency Counsel.

The Agency has approved templates for contracts and requests for proposals that are intended to conform Caltrans requirements.  These updated templates make minor changes to address new requirements and better address existing Caltrans requirements.  If the standard format is used, then only the contract scope of work, rather than the full contract, will be included in the Board agenda packet.

Requiring consultants to simply pass through subcontracting invoices, and not to mark-up or increase costs by tacking on a percentage to such amounts is designed to preserve project budget estimates, and is not allowed by Caltrans.  Additionally, there is some cost and paper savings due to the fact that the standard agreement does not have to be copied into agenda packets whenever a new consultant agreement is approved.

In response to a prior Caltrans audit, revisions to TAMC’s prior standard agreements have been made on a periodic basis. Subsequently, Caltrans revised the sample contract language in its Local Assistance Procedures Manual, this time identifying mandatory provisions which are to be included verbatim. Additionally, as part of its review of the Agency’s Procurement Policies, certain requests to modify the templates were made. Finally, in late January 2016, Caltrans issued an Office Bulletin requiring the addition of language related to a change in federal law concerning United States-flag commercial vessels.

As part of the Agency’s efforts to continually improve the contracting process, it is recommended that the templates be revised slightly to reflect these changes, as well as to make it clear that subconsultant work be billed as a form of direct cost, without mark-up, and to adopt a standard form of invoice summary, to better track the correlation between work performed and compensation provided.

Each template agreement is boilerplate for all Agency agreements for professional services, with variations depending upon the method of payment to be used. Approval of this action will continue existing practice that, for actions regarding professional services, the Board will continue to review and approve only what is unique to each agreement, usually the budget and scope of work, and authorize the Executive Director to sign the standard agreements with those unique provisions. This action will also authorize the Executive Direct to approve such additional revisions to the templates as may be necessary to meet Caltrans requirements without returning the Board each time for every change, no matter how insignificant.

The updated templates, showing the changed language, are attached. The templates have been developed, reviewed and approved as to form by Agency Counsel, Kay Reimann.