Fresno Council Extends Job-Order Contract System Through 2031, Locking in 5% Fee Structure

The Fresno City Council voted September 25 to extend a cooperative purchase agreement with Gordian Group, Inc., a Greenville, South Carolina firm, through January 7, 2026, plus five optional one-year extensions that could push the arrangement to 2031. The agreement continues the city’s Job Order Contracting program — a streamlined procurement system for facility repairs, infrastructure improvements, emergency work, and small-to-medium capital projects across the Airports, Capital Projects, and General Services departments.

Fresno has used Gordian’s JOC system since 2009. The model provides competitively bid fixed-unit pricing for construction tasks from local contractors, meant to speed city projects. The city isn’t obligated to use the program for any specific project, but when it does, it pays Gordian a combined 5% overhead: a 1.95% license fee and a 3.05% development fee on the value of each work order.

The council approved the extension on consent — no separate discussion, just a bundled yes-or-no vote alongside other routine items. Staff framed the arrangement as a tool for “prompt, responsive building maintenance and construction services at competitive local market pricing.”

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The Breakdown

• The base contract runs through January 7, 2026, with five optional one-year extensions — a potential six-year commitment if all options are exercised.
• Gordian collects 5% of every work order’s value: 1.95% as a license fee, 3.05% as a development fee.
• The city’s Project Labor Agreement applies to qualifying projects under this contract, though the material doesn’t detail which jobs that covers.
• Participating departments: Airports, Capital Projects, General Services.

What This Means for You

Every dollar the city spends through this system carries a 5% Gordian surcharge. For voters weighing how efficiently the city manages capital spending, that’s a meaningful structural cost — one the council just extended for up to six more years without separate debate. If the city’s project backlog runs into tens of millions over that span, the cumulative fee to Gordian alone could reach six or seven figures. You’re not voting directly on this contract, but you are voting on the council members who approved it and will decide whether to exercise those five optional extensions.

What to Watch

The staff report frames JOC as a time-saver and cost-control tool, but there’s a real ROI question here: does the 5% convenience fee actually deliver better project outcomes than traditional competitive bidding, or does it just shift procurement risk onto the city’s balance sheet? Gordian’s pitch is speed and “competitive local market pricing,” but “competitive” is doing heavy lifting when the city’s already locked into a single vendor’s pricing model. Over a potential six-year contract, that’s a lot of margin for one firm.

Another angle: this is a cooperative purchase agreement, meaning Fresno is piggybacking on another jurisdiction’s procurement process rather than running its own competitive bid. That’s legal and often defensible for routine purchases, but for a multi-year, multi-department construction-management system, it raises the question of whether the city actually vetted alternatives or simply re-upped the incumbent. The material doesn’t state what other options, if any, staff considered.

Finally, the Project Labor Agreement reference is worth tracking. If the city’s applying a PLA on top of Gordian’s 5% fee structure, voters should know the total markup, not just the headline number. The material doesn’t break that out, and the council didn’t ask.