Ok, so I realize there are alot of us here and we are all here for different reasons but I'm looking for someone who has either done state work or has rented equipment to the state. Here is my concern/question, the state is looking for equipment to rent for up coming work they are doing. I was given a list of items they need and was ask to quote all items I could provide. Well, I've done this before and I never seem to hear back from them. Of coarse, I'm only quoting what I presently have. Should I be quoting everything or at least more and if I get the bid go buy the equipment? My concern is that they are looking for people that can provide the most equipment. If you have any insist to this I'd love to hear back from you.
I realize we are in different states and California seems to do everything the opposite of Texas, but I'll answer anyways. My experience with bidding Caltrans Equipment Rental Contracts is that they're looking for one company that can provide all of the equipment. This doesn't necessarily mean that you couldn't submit a bid, but you would need to provide pricing on each piece of equipment. So if you don't have a specific piece of equipment that they're looking for you might need to call around and get rates to re-rent the equipment you don't currently own. Hope this helps...
Before I started doing environmental permits for road projects I did procurement for the State of Alaska, DOT. My recommendation is for you to go to your state's web page and pull up procurement. They should have a link to all of the rules that the procurement person has to follow in order to justify issuing a contract or purchase order. It is sometimes a beast. Good Luck.
I know lots of contractors who are very cautious about state work because of how extremely long they can take to pay. I don't know anything about Texas but other states that seems to be the way it is along with the Federal gov't.