With few engineers or senior inspectors in its ranks, the Baltimore Department of Transportation is seeking $10 million today to pay outside consultants.

The consultants’ tasks will range from the practical (overseeing street repaving and designing street lights) to the mundane (“attending meetings” and “answering contractor requests for information”).

Five engineering groups will share consulting assignments under a request at this morning’s Board of Estimates meeting. Such funds are routinely approved by the spending board for DOT, Public Works, General Services, and Recreation and Parks.

The payments and the tasks for DOT are:

• Up to $3 million to Century Engineering over three years to assist the agency in federally-funded road projects, including signage, ADA pedestrian ramps, streetscape designs and sediment control.

• $6 million – shared three ways by Rummel, Klepper & Kahl (RK&K), Whitman, Requardt & Associates, and A. Morton Thomas & Associates – to help manage capital improvement programs. The consultants will review change orders, inspect work sites, analyze claims conduct and oversee “constructability reviews” during a three-year period.

• $359,000 to HAKS Engineers to review the street-lighting program, including on-site management. Delays in installing LED lights have reduced the city’s expected energy and maintenance savings by $2 million this year, Budget Director Andrew Kleine recently told the City Council.

Last week, the Board of Estimates approved an additional $1.5 million to RK&K to use its knowledge of “social and electronic media strategies” to help the city develop and publicize “multi-modal transportation options, pedestrian and bicycle movement, and safety and infrastructure planning.”

$4 Million for Architects

The board is also set to approve up to $2 million in “on call” architectural services for the Department of General Services by Gant Brunnett. This follows last week’s approval of $2 million to Gannett Fleming for similar services.

In both instances, the consultants will provide designs for modifying or repairing city-owned facilities managed by General Services.

As in the case of the DOT consultants, the architects are paid on the basis of their actual payroll costs plus a multipler for overhead.

Oversight Costs

And not to be forgotten: the cost of overseeing the consultants who oversee the projects.

Administrative review by city agencies adds 10% to the overall price of consultant contracts.

In the case of HAKS Engineers, the Board of Estimates will be asked this morning to allot $395,075.17 from the “Pedestrian Lighting Construction Reserve” – $359,113.79 for HAKS itself and another $35,961.38 for DOT personnel looking over its shoulder.