DWP contract questions

The Department of Water and Power's primary contractor for dust-control work in the Owens Valley has overbilled the utility at least $3.3 million over the past eight years, according to a scathing audit released Tuesday.
The excessive billing by CH2M Hill, a Denver-based engineering firm with a $96 million contract for the project, included nearly $800,000 in markups on services that it improperly allowed subcontractors to pass on.
The audit by GCAP Services Inc., which comes more than a year after rising project costs drew widespread concern, also found that CH2M Hill lacked effective oversight of cost controls, subcontractor management and construction management.
Auditors and some DWP officials backed away from a preliminary finding that CH2M Hill had outlined a "strategy" in a 1999 company memo to circumvent limits on subcontractor markups.