Board of Estimate and Contract

Board of Estimate & Contracts

The Board of Estimate and Contracts is Rome's purchasing and contracting authority. This body approves how the city spends money on goods, services, and agreements. It reviews and awards contracts, approves purchases and bids, and authorizes the financial agreements that carry out the budget the Common Council adopts.

In practice, it's where the city's spending decisions get formally executed: vendors, public works contracts, professional services, and the like. If you want to see where Rome's money actually goes day to day, the Board of Estimate and Contracts is the room where those commitments are made official.

The Stories We Are Following:

Short on time? These are the three Board of Estimate and Contract threads that you need to know about in Rome Right Now.

Contract Costs Continue Climbing

Change orders are increases to contracts the city has already signed, and at the board's last two meetings they accounted for most of the money approved. On September 10, five of the fourteen items were change orders totaling about $1.33 million, roughly two-thirds of that day's spending. The largest added $1,006,622 to an environmental cleanup on East Dominick Street, bringing Abscope Environmental's contract to about $2.39 million, nearly double its original value. Three engineering contracts also grew, including a 2020 design agreement for Erie Boulevard that now stands at $549,000.

The pattern continued on September 24, when the parks improvement contract received its second increase in six weeks, climbing from $500,000 in November 2024 to roughly $687,000 under a resolution that did not describe the additional work. Two weeks earlier, members were uncertain whether the East Dominick figure represented the increase or the new total until the resolution was read aloud. Worth watching: whether future change orders explain the added work, and how far each project runs past its original price.

Rome is Still paying for two disasters

More than two years after the July 2024 tornado, and five years after the 2021 storm, disaster recovery remains one of the largest categories of city spending. In June, the board approved $948,000 to replace tornado damaged roofs and just over $1 million for other roofing work, and in August it committed roughly $1.33 million to MJ Dakota to rebuild the West Liberty and James Street parking lots. The FEMA recovery project at Pinti Field and Bellamy Harbor, tied to the 2021 storm, added a $1.42 million contract in July and a professional services contract of up to $160,800 on September 10.

What keeps this a story to follow is that the work is unfinished. The board has authorized bidding on a second phase of disaster recovery along with additional tornado projects, and the Common Council has just moved leftover federal storm money into Pinti Field. Each contract arrives as its own line on an agenda, so the full cost only becomes clear when it is tracked over time.

Rome Is Pouring Millions Into Its Water and Sewer Systems

Some of the board's largest decisions this year have involved pipes, pumps, and a dam. In April, it approved a contract worth up to $3.83 million, its largest of the year, to redesign and rebuild part of the city's sewage treatment plant. In May it hired engineers for $591,300 to study Boyd Dam, in June it committed nearly $932,000 to inventory and design the replacement of lead water lines, and on September 10 it authorized bidding for new sewage pumps at the city's wastewater pump stations.

Most of these are only the beginning. Officials described the Boyd Dam contract as "the start" of a larger project, and the lead line work is the inventory and design stage that precedes the far more expensive job of removing old pipes from the ground, while the pump bids signal that an equipment purchase is coming. For residents, it comes down to drinking water, the sewer beneath your street, and eventually the water bill that helps pay for all of it.