Bridge contractor loses job over math mistake in the bidding process

On Tuesday, Nov. 27, the Vernon County Commissioners, Jason Eckhart and Kevin Sprenkle of Sprenkle & Associates Engineers and C.B. Alexander of the Missouri Department of Transportation, met to open bids placed by several contractors hoping to replace the bridge running over Drywood Creek just south of Deerfield.

The bridge was first slated to be rebuilt due to many hazardous features including a lack of guardrail supports.

Four contracting companies placed bids for the project; Viebrock Construction, Snyder Bridge Company, Sprouls Construction, and APAC Construction.

Looking at the initial numbers Sprouls, Lamar, came in as the lowest bidder with an amount of $366,383. This is almost $75,000 under the second place bid of $440,715.50 from Viebrock, Sedalia, and $123,617 under the engineers estimates of $490,000.

However, upon further research a simple error in addition was caught by engineer Jason Eckhart. The bid placed by Sprouls Construction was actually around $90,000 higher than the total written in their packet. This mistake pushed them into second place for low bids.

On Wednesday, the Vernon County Commission delivered a form to Alexander recommending that the new low bidders, Viebrock be awarded the construction rights to the bridge project.

If Alexander accepts this decision, they will schedule a pre-construction conference.

Viebrock is currently building another bridge for the county south of Nevada just east of BB Highway.