Your Tax Dollars at Work: Door Repair - $1.44 Mil, In Nine Months' Time

Vocal Minority ^ | 7/20/09 | EricTheRed_VocalMinority

[EricTheRed_VocalMinority]

As of this writing, the Obama administration hasn’t issued a statement to address the $1.44 million dollar door repair. I wonder how much money it would cost to replace. I also wonder, given the location of the door repair is listed as Dyess Air Force Base, why such a project doesn’t fall under the Defense Budget.

Oh, yeah. Here’s something else I noticed in the Recovery.gov listing. The order for the door repair was signed April 28, 2009. The expected completion date? January 26, 2010. Nine months to repair a door.

No wonder it costs $1.44 million dollars! The government has managed spread a job over nine months so it ends up costing more.

And that would explain the $541 thousand-dollar traffic light in Honolulu. The sign-off date for this project is May 20, 2009. The completion date? May 20, 2010. One full year to install a traffic light:

I know what you Kool-Aid-drinking Obama apologists are thinking: Maybe the job is not starting on the sign-off date, but slated to start at a later time. For instance, perhaps the door repair expected to be completed January 26, 2010 is actually scheduled to begin, say, January 12, 2006, making it simply a two-week project.

And you know what? You could be right. But how are we to know? Recovery.gov does not provide project-start dates.

But whether a door repair job actually starts on its sign-off date or a later date, it is still inexcusably ridiculous that still takes nine months to repair a door! Or one

[Titus Quinctius Cincinnatus]

IIRC, this is a hangar door repair. But could still probably be done more cheaply than it is.

[Natural Law]

This is just setting up the infrastructure to deal with the aftermath of the yet unannounced no-knock visits from the End of Life counselors.

[Rodebrecht]

Obviously they have to fly in, house, feed, and clothe highly-paid door specialists from Mauritania.

[EricTheRed_VocalMinority]

Thanks for the clarification. Still quite costly, though.

[SC DOC]

It is a reward to an American Indian Company

[Lokibob]

You obviously have not worked in government using their procurement system.

I have been out of it for many years, but even in the 90’s, a 9 month completion date for a civil engineering project was extremely optimistic.

First you have to get the door on the list of projects needed, requiring at least 2 monthly meetings if there are no objections, if objections, it could go 4 or 5 meetings MONTHLY!!!

Then once approved, it goes to finance for funding. Sorry not Obama funding, but budget funding. This could take up to 6 months, depending on other projects.

Then it goes to contracting and purchasing, which, if it is over $25,000, means it has to be published and the contractors have to have a reasonable time (3 or 4 months) to see the job and make estimates. Then they bid... could be a 6 month long bid....

Give them a couple more months to open the bids and award the contract...
Then the losing contractors have a few months to object...
Then the winning contractor get get the parts and start the work.

It is crazy, always has been, it is government....

Bob

[El Sordo]

How big a door?

What was wrong with it?

What’s the cost breakdown?

[EricTheRed_VocalMinority]

Bob, thank you very much for the information. It was very ... um, informative, and made me more certain the government should not be in charge of these things!

[Walmartian]

I would like to see the Request For Proposal (RFP).

[rednesss]

How about this dooozy:

Project Description :RECOVERY PROJECT XUMU 13-1025C IS
AWARDED TO INSTALL 68 METAL WIRE STORAGE LOCKERS IN THE
DORMITORY STORAGE ROOM OF FACILITY 13135 ON VANDENBERG AFB, CA.
Available Funds :$1,506,450

That's over $22,000 each, for metal wire storage lockers.

[Dogfaced Soldier]

I’ve installed/repaired many a hanger door. I can imagine several scenarios where 1.4 million is a fair number. Could be a hardened blast door. Could be ancillary work involved such as decontamination of asbestos or other hazards such as bird dung (if its been empty for a long time). Could be a new door to accomadate a different type of aircraft. Can’t jump to conclusions.

[lack-of-trust]

They are cooking the books.
The Door for BLDG 5112 is an Aircraft Hangar Door, so it is expensive to repair, but they (Obama’s evil minions) have added a million dollars to the contract value. I found the actual award here:
https://www.fbo.gov/?s=opportunity&mode=form&id=08b1279a8c01bed20a6cdbefd809f21e&tab=core&_cview=0
The Air Force issued a contract to repair the door for $444,000

They respond to the criticism of the slow pace of stimulus spending by lying.