DRAFT
APTA PROCUREMENT STEERING COMMITTEE
March 4, 2006
Meeting Notes
The meeting of the APTA Procurement Steering Committee was called to order by Co-Chairs Ron Tober and Bob Brownstein. Members present included Pete Cannito, Bob Bergen, Huelon Harrison, Lucy Jackson, Saundra Lautenberg, Tom Margro, Hugh Mose, Takis Salpeas, and Chuck Wochele. Members present on the phone included Anna Barry, Maureen Bertocci and Pat Scully. Guests present included Paul Smith, Joel Abraman and John Andrews. James Harper from the FTA was present as well.
The APTA antitrust statement was read, the minutes of the November meeting were approved and the action register was reviewed.
The committee welcomed Bob Bergen as the new committee member representing the APTA Legal Affairs Committee. It was noted by Bob Brownstein that agency legal staff are key players in the procurement process and obtaining their by-in for procurement standards and reform is key. Bob Bergen reviewed the procurement discussion that took place at the recent APTA Legal Affairs Seminar and indicated that he would be bringing information from the procurement steering committee back to the legal affairs committee for discussion. He noted that most lawyers think they are not involved early enough in the procurement process.
The committee discussed the procurement standards oversight committee list of members that was presented. The oversight committee will hold its first meeting on May 1 during the APTA Bus Conference. It was noted this is the first cross modal - cross functional standards group to be formed, and since it is a new activity, there will be special challenges. Pete Cannito agreed to have a conversation with Lonnie Mitchell, chair of the oversight committee about the need for broad involvement and extensive communications on their roles and responsibilities. It was suggested each of the members of the oversight committee needs to be part of the process and to be an advocate for the use of the standards and to actually use the standards themselves, and this needs to be a discussion item at the oversight committee meeting.
The list of procurement issues the APTA Procurement Task Force identified was considered, and it was suggested it be given to the oversight committee for its information.
Jim LaRusch provided the committee with a draft business case for procurement standards. It was noted the budget detail did not need to be in the document, and an estimate of what would be accomplished in the first year would be needed. Committee members were asked to submit their comments to Jim by March 24.
The committee discussed the procurement conference program sessions being held at the bus and rail conferences. Bob Brownstein reported that the opening general forum at the bus equipment and materials management seminar would be a procurement session.
The committee reviewed a draft committee report. This was developed in response to a committee member's request for a document that summarizes what the procurement steering committee is about that could be shared with other APTA committees. It was suggested a communications plan for the report was also needed, that it needed to get out to the members of the various committees, and the document should be done as a small document or brochure. Other comments included the suggestion that the report needs to cover how standards will come back to the various committees for comment. The steering committee members are to provide leadership in the discussion of standards with their respective committees. Members were asked to provide their input on the draft document to Fran Hooper by March 24. Ron Tober asked the members to also think about issues beyond the standards area that we want to communicate out about.
The issue of the development of a small operators' procurement guide was discussed. Hugh Mose indicated the GMs need to know how to mine the industry's knowledge or expertise on procurement questions and processes. The possibility of APTA developing a clearinghouse service was mentioned.
The re-establishment of FTA's regional procurement workshops was discussed, including the idea of having a session at the workshop focused on the health of the industry. It was noted there is a problem in defining the industry when talking about health since some sectors are weak and others are strong. Other comments included the question of how procurement issues had affected the health of the industry - were unreasonable warrantees etc. the reason bus and rail companies failed? Others noted health means profitability of contracts, not the number of contracts, and industry practices do affect profitability. It was also noted this message and the need to get the work out in a timely manner does not play well with GMs - they feel if companies are willing to bid on contracts with such terms then there must not be a problem. It was noted some sectors of the industry - contractors - won't accept T&Cs having conditions that will cause them major problems while others need the work and will accept that tough T&Cs come from contractor performance problems but also an imbalance or abuse of power by agencies and since companies keep coming back it may be hard to change the situation.
Bob Brownstein reported the submission of the procurement task force best practice recommendations met with mixed success. Since none of them had been vetted against a standard, they would be included in the appendix as an example.
The next meeting of the steering committee will be held at the APTA Rail Conference on Saturday, June 10, from 9 a.m. to 12 noon.
The meeting was adjourned.
ACTION REGISTER
Meeting of March 4, 2006
| Task |
Responsibility | Timeframe |
| 1 | Discussion with Lonnie Mitchell about oversight committee roles and responsibilities | Pete Cannito | Prior to 5/1 oversight comm mtg |
| 2 | Provide Oversight committee with task force issues documents | Fran Hooper | Prior to comm. meeting |
| 3 | Steering committee discuss how to promote use of procurement standards | Co-chairs | Future meeting |
| 4 | Provide comments on business case to Jim LaRusch and recirculate to the steering committee | Committee members | By March 24th |
| 5 | Provide comments on committee report to Fran Hooper | Committee members | By March 24th |
Click here to return to the APTA committees page.
Some of these pages may include links to documents in the Adobe PDF format. Please download the Adobe PDF reader if you have not already done so.
