Determining the Low Bidder with Additives and Alternates

If your bid form includes Additives, Deductives, or Alternates (see previous blog post from August 28th for more information), it is very important to make sure that you award the contract the bidder with the lowest bid of the combination of the base bid and Additives, Deductives, or Alternates that you choose to exercise.

Even if one bidder is the low bidder on the base bid, they may not be the low bidder when you add an Additive, Deductive, or Alternate bid. You should be comparing all bidders against the same combination of bids to determine who the low bidder is. In other words, if you choose to exercise Additive number 1 and 3, you should do a comparison of the price from all bidders on the base bid and Additives 1 and 3 to determine who is the low bidder on that combination.

Your decision of which Additive, Deductive, or Alternate bids to exercise should be based on funding availability and sound business reasons related to the project, and not on who your favorite bidder is. Not managing this part of the process correctly may subject you to both protests and/or audit findings.

In addition, you should not do a change order for any of the Additive, Deductive, or Alternate bids if such a decision, made at the time of bid submittal, would have changed the order of who you awarded the contract to.