EEP Procurement

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Contents

Introduction / Background

North Carolina's Ecosystem Enhancement Program (EEP) is an innovative, nationally-recognized public sector program that was designed to make environmental mitigation and restoration efforts more efficient and effective. But in recent years, serious questions have been raised by academic investigators, private sector mitigation bankers, consultants and engineers about both the efficiency and effectiveness of the EEP, and other mitigation and restoration efforts.

EEP staff have provided their own summary of the two primary procurement methods they use--Full Delivery (FD) and Design-Bid-Build (DBB)--along with an internal assessment of the pros and cons of each of these methods, as well as EEP's view on the usefulness of having both methods available.

The new NC DENR administration has identified the need for an independent analysis of EEP's procurement methods. They have heard a number of opinions about how EEP outsources its work and want an independent look at how it is done. Because there is strong interest in the subject, they want a transparent and stakeholder-inclusive study. For this reason DENR has commissioned the UNC School of Government to provide an analysis and assessment of EEP business practices. Phase 1 of the project seeks to identify the appropriate performance measures to use in the actual analysis which will occur in Phase 2. The Secretary's office is asking for your input into this process during Phase 1, our current effort. The outcome of this exercise could lead to changes in how EEP conducts business.

This page provides information about the small and big group meetings, study team, methodology, preliminary findings, and the final report (early May 2010).


Commenting and Changes

Please feel free to comment on any and all aspects of the study. You can comment anonymously at anytime, but if you would like to comment directly on this wiki or allow us to follow up with you via email, please create an account and log in before commenting.


One efficient way to give the study team your thoughts on the EEP procurement processes is to create a wiki account, go to the page with EEP's summary of its procurement methods, and make changes directly on that page that reflect your thoughts.


If you would like to submit comments that cannot be changed by others, please send them to Paul Caldwell or Richard Whisnant as an MS Word or Adobe pdf file. Bonus points for uploading and linking to your own .pdf file here on the wiki...


Meeting Information

To facilitate the initial data gathering effort, there will be four meetings in February 2010, one each with four major Stakeholders groups. Two additional meetings will be held in March 2010. Everyone from the small group meetings will be invited to the big group meetings.


The following terms will be discussed during these meetings:

  • Criteria (aka virtues, attributes) = the values that are important to you. Examples include transparency, accountability, speed, quality, cost-efficiency, etc.
  • Standards (aka measures) = the data-driven measurement that helps you know the degree to which a criteria is being met. For example, a Speed standard could be x units / y hours. A Quality standard could be z% failure rate.
  • Indicator (aka data) = the actual data needed by a standard.

The February meetings will primarily focus on criteria (and perhaps standards). Standards (and perhaps indicators) will be the main focus during the March meetings.

Directions

This link brings up a Google map with the SOG parking deck's location. To obtain directions, click Get Directions in the upper-left corner, insert the address where you plan to leave from to the right of "A", and click the Get Directions button.

FAQ

In response to our email invites to the small group meetings, several stakeholders asked good, basic questions about the project and the meetings. We have compiled those questions and answers in this FAQ regarding the project and the small group meetings in February

Timeline

Small Group Meetings in February

Big Group Meetings in March

Analysis and Report Writing in April

  • Rough Draft ready by Monday, April 19, 2010
  • Final Draft ready by Monday, May 3, 2010

Study Team

  • Maureen Berner - Principal Investigator
    • Associate Professor of Public Administration and Government, School of Government (UNC)
  • Richard Whisnant - Consultant
    • Professor of Public Law and Government, School of Government (UNC)
  • Bill Holman - Consultant
    • Director of State Policy, Nicholas Institute for Environmental Policy Solutions (Duke)
  • Paul Caldwell - Project Manager
    • Project Manager, School of Government (UNC)


Methodology

The purpose of the first phase of this project is to determine which performance measures and indicators should be used in the actual evaluation that will occur in Phase 2. In order for the evaluation to effective, accurate, and have the respect of all stakeholder groups, we believe those stakeholder groups must have a say in which performance measures and indicators are used.


Phase 1 primarily consists of four meetings held in February and two meetings held in March. The four meetings in February are broken up by stakeholder group because we believe this will facilitate the freest exchange of ideas in the time we have available. The purpose of the February meetings is to gather feedback on criteria, and as time allows, standards.


The two meetings in March will include everyone who was invited to or attended a meeting in February. During the March meetings, we will focus almost entirely on gathering suggestions for potential standards associated with each criteria.


Preliminary Findings

The following criteria (in priority order) have been mentioned repeatedly during each of our February meetings. This list evolves over time as we continue to get feedback during meetings or via phone calls or emails. If you wish to comment on this list, or add to it, please feel free to do so directly through the wiki, or you can contact Paul Caldwell and he will post your comments/additions for you. Paul's email address is caldwell@sog.unc.edu.


1) CRITERION: Quality/Effectiveness (note: some standards of quality are already established by law or regulation)

  • STANDARD: # of years until close out
    • Note: During the March 31 meeting, this standard was chosen as a general way to track time. A desire was expressed to use multiple milestones during the course of a project. For example, between the "institution" date and the end of the design phase, between the end of the design phase and the end of the construction phase, between the end of the construction phase and the end of the monitoring phase, etc. Additional work will be required to determine the precise points between different phases and to locate commonly agreed upon terms that mark the start date, expected end date, and actual end date.
  • STANDARD: # of anticipated credits at construction vs. # of credits delivered at close out
  • STANDARD: % of projects are in River Basin Restoration Priorities (RBRPs)


2) CRITERION: Transparency / Accessibility

  • STANDARD: All scoring decisions made during competitive selection processes will be made public on the agency website at award announcement for all proposals and shall clearly explain how/why the winning proposal won and what other proposals would have needed to change in order to be more competitive
  • STANDARD: Full costs (using full cost accounting) associated with each project phase are made publicly available on the department web site at time proposals are awarded.
  • STANDARD: Make the design, repair, and maintenance costs for each project available on the website.


3) CRITERION: Cost-efficiency

  • STANDARD: Avg. $ / credit over rolling, 3-5 year spans, and at close out, controlled by region of the state (to account for different property values), type of credit, etc.


In addition to the criteria and standards listed above, the following ideas were also suggested. Most of these may need additional work to be fleshed out and may not fit in an evaluation that compares DBB to FD, but would still be useful to have.

  • A step-by-step process map for DBB and FD accessible on the website
  • A description explaining how administration costs are distributed in DBB and FD projects
  • Examine the failure rates, repair rates, and the number of times when surety bonds have had to be called for DBB vs. FD projects
  • Examine the cost and difficulty of modifying DBB vs. FD projects when there are changes to the demand for credits, to regulations, or to the interpretation of regulations. If a viable standard can come from this idea, it should be rolled into the Quality / Effectiveness group.


NOTE: At one time in the process, other criteria were considered. They were removed during the course of the process either because of low levels of support among stakeholders, redundancy with other criteria, or because no viable standards could be thought of for it. Those criteria were:

  • Timliness (merged with Quality / Effectiveness)
  • Simplicity (unable to determine viable standards)
  • Accountability (merged with Transparency / Accessibility)
  • Consistency (unable to determine viable standards given the assumption of a fixed regulatory environment beyond EEP's control)
  • Flexibility (merged with Quality / Effectiveness)

Final Report

The final repot (Phase 1, recommending an evaluation framework) is here.


Contract

You may view the executed contract between UNC and DENR here.

Retrieved from "http://sogweb.sog.unc.edu/Water/index.php/EEP_Procurement"
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