The city will vote next week on whether to sole-source a contract worth more than $1 million.

Peter O’Blenes, the city’s director of infrastructure and operations, brought forward a recommendation Monday night that council waive its standard bidding process and award the contract for two new 12-metre (40-foot) low-floor city buses to Nova Bus.

As O’Blenes explained in a report to council, the city’s capital budget for this year includes the purchase of the two buses through federal and territorial funds.

“These two buses are replacement units for aging pieces of the city’s fleet,” he said.

“It is crucial to ensure that the city has the equipment necessary to conduct transit operation and fleet maintenance.

“As per the purchasing and sales policy, a council resolution is required to waive the bidding process in favour of any supplier, as well as to award any contract in excess of $100,000.”

The city’s full-fleet of 13 buses are Nova brand. The ages will range from 18 months to 13 years when the new buses arrive in 2018, if the city approves the purchase.

Last year, the city came up with replacement plan for the fleet, spacing out the purchase plans for the coming years to ensure no more than two per year are bought.

There is a current back-log on manufacturing, due in part to the funding of transit programs from the federal government.

Consequently, it’s not expected the city would have the new buses for a period of about 14 months after the order is placed, if it is indeed placed by mid-March.

“Delivery time for orders received after mid-March 2017 will be more than 14 months,” O’Blenes said in his report.

“Delays in replacement may cause strain on existing transit services due to failures of aging equipment.”

Moving ahead with a sole-source contract, he said, will mean the buses could be ordered as soon as possible. As well, the city’s transit fleet would remain standardized, which helps in training staff, troubleshooting, getting parts and in fleet maintenance.

“Not proceeding as recommended and releasing a public tender would negate any standardization of the conventional transit fleet,” O’Blenes noted.

“Initial estimates are that operating and maintenance costs could increase as much as $13,000 in retooling and training costs in 2018 if a new supplier is chosen.”

While Coun. Betty Irwin was clear that she is not ordinarily in favour of sole-sourcing, she said in this case, there are many practical reasons to do so, such as the ordering of parts, and the timelines.

In this case, Irwin said, she will be voting in favour of waiving the bidding process.

O’Blenes also confirmed for councillors Jocelyn Curteanu and Dan Boyd that the city went through the bid process on its last bus purchase, with Nova being the winning bid of two.

Curteanu asked if the city might have the ability to negotiate a better price for being loyal customers.

O’Blenes commented that the price for each bus – $520,842 – is already good, being only slightly higher than the city’s last purchase in 2016.

With the current federal funding program for transit, bus manufacturers all over North America are seeing a large increase in demand.

“It’s a great time to be in the bus-building business,” Curtis commented.

Earlier, he had emphasized the benefits of a standardized fleet and the importance of working with the federal government on such funding matters.

Council will vote on the contract next week.