By COLE REIF
Great Bend Post
In 2016, the City of Great Bend entered into an agreement with an on-call engineering service. After the city’s engineer Rob Winiecke resigned the previous summer, Great Bend officials were unsuccessful finding a staff engineer to hire. The city hired Professional Engineering Consultants (PEC) from Wichita.
Assistant City Engineer Sreehitha Kadiyala said the city is moving on from PEC as they started seeking bids for on-call engineers last October.
"We had meetings and sent invites to about 10 firms," said Kadiyala. "We received four proposals. We will evaluate all the proposals we received. We're hoping to conduct interviews in the next couple of weeks."
Kadiyala said officials are hopeful to have an engineer contract for the city council’s approval by Jan. 15, 2024.
In 2016, Great Bend administration mentioned saving a significant amount of money with an on-call engineer by avoiding paying a high salary to a staff engineer regardless if he or she has a project or not.