Contracting for City of Dunwoody services, a look backward at millions of dollars.

The biggest issue facing the newly created City of Dunwoody was how were we going to provide city services? The City of Sandy Springs was the model and they used a master contractor who then subcontracted where they could. This system worked wonderfully for Sandy Springs but the price being offered to Dunwoody by a single bidder was a little on the expensive side and a group of community members with the guidance of Senator Dan Weber started exploring other options.  Soon after, the master contractor CH2MHill withdrew the bid to provide city services and because of it, the city moved forward with a new model whereby we have a strong City Manager with direct oversight of numerous highly skilled contractors specializing in very targeted tasks. As time is proving the validity of our system, other communities now look to the Dunwoody model for possible new contracting options.

Check out this article in the AJC where our City Manager, Mr. Warren Hutmacher is quoted as to the efficiency and multi-million dollars in savings based on the system we use.

“By opening up the competition, we were able to draw better prices and draw in specialty firms,” Hutmacher said. “We were able to be innovative with new ideas, because of what had already been done.”

Looking back Dunwoody was lucky that we explored various options then took the one less traveled by, as that has made all the difference (in our budget).