Grimes County road and bridge department is making some changes to contract bidding in the county.
Engineer Harry Walker talked about bid bonds at the most recent Commissioner Court meeting, where a policy was put into place a decade ago, requiring all contracts over $100,000 to go through a bid bond.
He mentioned that the state statute leaves the discretion to the counties at the end of the day.
“We recently had a situation with a bridge contract, where the low bidder failed to provide the bid bond, and we had to reject their bid,” said Walker. “In my experience, the bid bond is not a beneficial item, it runs up expenses for the contractors. So, I am requesting you revert back to the state statute, and make this a discretionary item.”
As mentioned, this would apply to pretty much any public works contract within the county, which means some other changes may have to come along with other departments, and how they handle purchasing.
This will not affect other contracts, however.
“Performance bonds, payment bonds, it will not change them. those are actually useful things. I have never found a bid bond to be a useful item, just an added expense,” Walker said.
The Commissioners approved the change, to make bid bonding a discretionary item for public works contracts in the county.
