Elgin council approves responsible bidder ordinance

The City of Elgin will soon work under the guidelines of a revised responsible bidder ordinance after a vote by council members at the Committee of the Whole meeting Wednesday night.

The ordinance was first brought up several years ago by unions advocating a more detailed definition for “responsible bidder” when it came to city contracts. Elgin already had a definition that, most notably, did not include the need for contractors to provide proof of participation in apprentice programs for certain projects. The new definition does.

Toby Koth, president of Laborer’s Local 582, said the new ordinance will protect Elgin.

“We have a lot of problems with contractors from outside the area coming in,” Koth said. “They do the jobs shoddy and leave with the money.”

Koth said shoddy work needs to be redone sooner, costing the city more in the long run.

The new ordinance will help guide city staff members as they choose contractors in the future, but it will only affect projects costing more than $50,000. According to a board memo prepared by Elgin’s Corporation Counsel William Cogley, the threshold will help keep bids lower on smaller projects.

Companies that don’t have training programs but are still capable of smaller jobs can still bid, creating greater competition and lower final costs for the city, the memo explained.

City Manager Sean Stegall said including a threshold amounted to a compromise between the city and the people advocating for the new ordinance.

“It’s trying to balance the good with any potential downside,” Stegall said. “We think we’ve been able to establish that with the $50,000.”

That threshold will also ensure that residential projects funded by city grants will not need to comply with the apprentice program restriction. If the ordinance were to include every project, regardless of dollar amount, people receiving grants to rehab their homes would be included in the restriction.

Koth said the goal of the ordinance was to protect Elgin, not hurt people working on smaller projects.

Representatives of more than a dozen local unions showed up to the meeting to lend their support to the ordinance, but a motion to approve it passed through the Committee of the Whole unanimously with no discussion from councilmen.

The ordinance will go into effect once it is passed by the full council at its next meeting.