Wichita couldn’t hire enough workers for its new water plant, so it’s outsourcing jobs

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The city of Wichita won’t have enough employees to run two water plants when a new one is completed, so it’s paying a private company to provide staffing for at least one more year.

The city will outsource some operations of the new plant to Operational Technical Services, a Los Angeles-based company hired in July to help start up and commission the plant.

The city is short about five or six process control specialists and hasn’t been able to recruit workers for the specialized, highly technical job.

That’s expected to add nearly $1.3 million to the escalating cost of Wichita Water Works , a new water treatment plant previously called the Northwest Water Treatment Facility that is on track to be finished six months late and at least $20 million over the original budget. The $1.3 million contract approved on Tuesday is in addition to a $4 million contract with OTS that the City Council approved in July.

Temporary operations were originally included in a proposed contract to design and build the plant, which would have allowed the operational support to be financed by low-interest loans from the EPA and KDHE. Instead, now the city will dip into its Public Works and Utilities staffing fund and the city’s water utility fund to pay for the short-term staffing.

Short-term operations was dropped from the contract in 2018 at the direction of former Mayor Jeff Longwell after staff recommended awarding the contract to Jacobs Engineering and raised concerns that Longwell’s preferred contractor — Wichita Water Partners — had no experience operating a plant and had proposed outsourcing operations to a firm tied to the Flint, Michigan water crisis.

The city first asked for proposals for a comprehensive project that included designing, building and temporarily operating the plant.

It later gave more weight to the lowest low bidder and dropped operations from the scope of the project.

Jacobs Engineering decided not to participate after the new rules appeared to favor Wichita Water Partners, which had submitted a lower bid on the first phase of the project. Wichita Water Partners, a joint venture between Burns & McDonnell and Alberici, was ultimately awarded the contract to design and build the plant.

The overall cost of the project has since surpassed Wichita Water Partners’ “guaranteed maximum price” with multiple change orders on the back end of the project.

The city has projected Wichita Water Works will be fully operational by April 2025. It will operate both plants until 2026 before “mothballing” the old one.

“We need the ability to work this new plant and make sure it’s been tested in all seasons’ demands and source-water blend scenarios,” Gary Janzen, director of public works and utilities, told the council on Tuesday. “So we’re estimating right now probably from April to the end of 2025 operating both plants, which means we need more staff to be able to do that.”

Janzen said there’s a shortage of water plant operators across the country, part of what he called a “silver tsunami” of the aging workforce reaching retirement age without enough younger workers to fill the jobs they’re leaving. In particular, Janzen said younger applicants have been less interested in working second and third shift at the water plant.

“24/7, 365 days a year we’ve got to operate this plant,” Janzen said. “It’s around the clock. That has also become a challenge, I think, for the newer generation. Not everybody wants to work those shifts necessarily, so that’s been a hard part, too.”

Janzen said “no one’s losing their job” when the new water plant goes online. In fact, the city will add staff positions, he said.

The city has improved pay for water operators recently but wages remain below industry standards, he said. The city on average pays certified water operators $32 to $39 an hour while other comparable cities pay up to $50 an hour. The job requires a high school diploma, two years of experience and passing a Class 4 certification test.

Mayor Lily Wu said she hopes more young people will consider a career in water operations.

“I’m really trying to encourage a lot more young people to consider options outside of going to a four-year university,” Wu said. “These are great paying jobs, and so I just wanted to mention that . . . more people need to be interested in these types of critical roles for infrastructure.”