Brittany Kelley
KYLE — Kyle City Council voted to amend a contract after discovering that it was $2.4 million more than required at its Sept. 1 meeting.
The item was initially on the consent agenda, but was pulled by council member Michael Tobias. According to agenda documents, council approved a contract for $5 million Aug. 19, 2025, which was recently found to be incorrect, due to “an administrative error.” The project contract was for the design and installation of hardware and software for the Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition Master Plan to replace the city’s current aging and “increasingly unreliable” system that provides remote monitoring and control of the city’s water and wastewater infrastructure.
Mike Murphy, director of Water Utilities, noted that staff used “a competitive sealed proposal,” instead of a traditional request for proposals, which used new documents and forms aimed to “ensure that we got the best, most qualified contractor to do the project.”
Afterwards, a review team determined that TMT should be selected, with a bid of $2,685,446.96. He stated that this team did not have access to the costs, only the technical capability of the contractor when selecting, as the now-nonexistent Procurement Department oversaw the contracts.
A miscommunication occurred when the bid, which was supposed to split the cost evenly in the water and wastewater Capital Improvement Plan (CIP) process, instead replicated the total amount in each CIP, creating a higher bid of approximately $5 million.
“The first question I had is, ‘Why is it so high?’ And the immediate response was because we expedited the project by six months. So, we thought, ‘Okay, that’s appropriate,’” recalled Murphy, adding that this miscommunication occurred with each of the contractors, so the number didn’t seem unreasonable, compared to others. “So, we just moved the project forward. We came to council [and] council approved an amendment to pay $5 million to TMT to build the project.”
Then, earlier this year, in July, a staff member came to Murphy, sharing that he “found $2 million” in the project after discovering left over money. The Procurement Department then looked at the numbers and the contract for the first time, said Murphy, where they discovered the mistake.
Because of this, the item brought forth to council would approve a resolution to authorize interim city manager Perwez Moheet to reduce the contracted amount to the appropriate $2.6 million.
TMT acknowledged the mistake and signed the amendment, so the project will move forward as expected, said Murphy.
Following Tobias’ question about whose desk saw these contracts, Moheet stepped in, as “Murphy, for whatever reason, is not disclosing it … The ultimate responsibility was that of the former city manager. One, the Procurement desk that he keeps referring to was: our super genius [procurement supervisor] Dan Dellemonache that is no longer with the city; Joshua Chronley was the assistant director — part of the management team — that is no longer with the city; and Rosie Truelove, who oversaw the Administrative Services Department when this project all started, [who is also] no longer with the city. So, when people come up here and say the entire department quit — they didn’t quit. I asked them to leave,” emphasized the interim city manager.
Tobias stated that he was frustrated and asked how many more of these instances the city has? According to Moheet, there are several other instances of errors.
“I will not allow for the chastising of our staff to happen and for blame or fingers to be pointed as if mistakes don’t happen. Our staff has a tremendous weight of work upon them and we have cut their services. We have cut their departments. We have cut their budgets and we expect them to be continuously running smoothly, seamlessly. Yes, it was a $2.5 million mistake, but mistakes do happen,” said council member Claudia Zapata. “I find it extremely unprofessional and extremely disrespectful the way in which they are being spoken about tonight.”
“It was their job — that's what they get paid to do,” interjected Tobias.
Council member Lauralee Harris added that the Procurement Department was added when former city manager Bryan Langley began, so policies were still being developed.
“I can understand asking for grace because we are all human, but $2.5 million is literally our whole cushion for [fiscal year] 2026-27. That’s a large amount of money,” said Mayor Yvonne Flores-Cale. “This is our second contract where we’ve had an issue. So, it’s not just about proving and pointing fingers. It’s about really tightening up our belt and figuring out what’s working and what’s not working.”
The motion to approve a resolution to amend the contract passed 7-0.
To listen to the full discussion, visit bit.ly/4zTwyAP.
