Hamilton’s Director of Procurement Tina Iacoe says the City launched vendor performance management this past week, and that eventually past performance will be a factor in how the City awards contracts.
Ward 14 Councillor Mike Spadafora asked if performance could be used to award contracts to a proven contractor who is not the lowest bidder.
“When this rolls out and it’s being used through the procurement, I know our policy is we take the lowest bid during procurement. Could this negate a lowest bid based on the performance that would stop the lowest bidder from winning?”
Iacoe responded “Yes, it depends, once we get into phase two and if a particular vendor had a very low rating in comparison to another vendor, who had a very high rating with respect to performance, and we’d have to run the numbers certainly. If their bids were somewhat similar, then the vendor with the higher performance would probably win the award because the other vendor’s performance would have a negative impact on their [bid].”
The City has not set a firm date to implement phase two, and will continue awarding contracts to the lowest bidder for the time being.
Performance evaluations and management have been standard practices in other municipalities for decades.
Hamilton is only implementing it now after a series of construction and paving project failures, with a 2022 audit of the disastrous J.L. Grightmire Arena project recommending Hamilton adopt basic practices and industry standards.
The arena project went 20 percent over budget, was nearly a year late in delivery, and resulted in legal action against the City that was resolved with a confidential settlement.
The implementation took over three years due to COVID and the City’s cybersecurity failure.
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Published: June 15, 2025
Last updated: June 15, 2025
Author: Joey Coleman
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