The Board of Public Works met on July 16, 2026, to approve several routine actions, including a consulting contract for municipal procurement, cybersecurity software renewal, multiple affordable housing trust fund agreements, construction contracts, and change orders. All votes were unanimous.
We will call this meeting of the Board of Public Works to order. We'll start with the old business. Can I get an approval of the July 9th BPW minutes? Motion to approve. I'll second that. All in favor? Aye. Aye. Moving on to new business. First up, the City of Evansville Finance requests approval of a contract with Lopardo Energy LLC, a consultant to provide municipal procurement consulting services aimed at strengthening purchasing operations, improving vendor management, increasing efficiency, reducing costs, and supporting long-term procurement strategy. Total contract amount is not to exceed 294,750 annually. Dashnay Streeter, Director of Purchasing. What else can you tell us? Good afternoon, members of the board. This is a again, it's a consultant agreement. Um Leopardo is a firm and they've um proposed different ways that we can essentially save money for the city. Um one of their items were a consortium review, um, which is where they'll compare pricing across multiple consortiums to ensure we are receiving the best prices possible. And they will also uh review the incumbent consortium vendors just to ensure that we are receiving those discounted pricing. Um items that they've identified were office supplies, small tools and equipment, and then contractual services. Um they're also looking at uh reverse auctioning, which is a competitive bidding process where vendors compete to offer the lowest price for the product or services being procured. Um instead of buyers bidding up prices, they will essentially be bidding down and trying to compete and give the best price possible for the services that we are requesting. Um we're looking at that for waste removal, chemicals and oil and fuel. Um then last is the RFP and RFQ, which is something we are familiar with. Um these are items that um don't require formal bidding process. However, we could uh benefit from uh cost savings by entering a price agreement for things like polymers, sludge removal operations, uh plant natural gases, and professional services. Outstanding. Are is there a range of cost savings that is seen as as likely or like a goal? Is there a goal of cost savings or a range of a goal? Um yes, and I do not have those figures right in front of me, but it's upwards of $300,000 a year, is what they're saying. And um after the first month of getting this implemented, we should start seeing savings. I have a question. How many years is this? Because it says 294,750 annually. Is this a one-year? Correct. Or is it multiple? So it is a one-year agreement, and there is the ability upon mutual agreement of the parties to extend if needed. Um I don't right now, this is like a trial basis. We would like to see um what we can do with this and what purchasing can learn from them and what we can implement into our processes and create how-to's for um the purchasing department's future use uh independently. So um I can't say that this is an agreement that we intend to long term, however, um right now we have agreed to a single year. Gotcha. And then I heard you say 300,000 annual cost savings. It looks like a wash because the contract is approximately 300,000, but what you're saying is we're it in in the hypothetical that we do one year with them and identify 300,000 annually, then that savings keeps happening year after year, even though this consulting agreement would zero out and go away. That's my understanding. And again, um what one of the things I am excited about this consultancy program is um the things that we can learn from them. And um I have also one of the things that I inquired about is the ability for me to work hand in hand with them so that I can retain and see how they are doing everything and then get get ideas from them and take those on as well for future use at the department level. Super. Any other questions from the board? No. No.