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00lH6 Americans and much of the recruiting is accomplished through the Tribal EmploY/!Ient Rights Offices of the Ute Mountain and Southern Ute Tribes. To further enhance the construction skills of the workforce, the compan)' is training a group of Native Americans as heal'!, equipment operators, mechanics and carpelllers to work on the Animas-La Plata project. There will also be opportunities for Tribal Members to fill office alldfield engineering positions as the IVork gains momentum. The ALP Contracts awarded to the Tribe and perfonned by its contractor, WCA, are negotiated finn-fixed contracts governed by the rules ofP.L. 93-638. Both the BOR and the Tribe foresaw that due to funding and other constraints required smaller individual contracts would need to be issued in the beginning of construction. For this reason, a Master Contract was developed by both parties that would apply to all future contracts awarded and took care of covered every contracting requirement other than the actual negotiated construction work scope. This has . allowed WCA and the BOR to concentrate on the physical work at hand by negotiating and agreeing on the construction of the project. The benefits of this unique P.L. 93-638 negotiated contracting process is that "throughout the contract award process, the [BOR and WCAl shall share all construction project cost infonnation available to them in order to facilitate reaching agreement on an overall fair and reasonable price for the project or part thereof:' Although this process can be time consuming, it seems that no stone detail is left unturned unaddressed prior to award of the Contract to the Tribe. The work has been planned, analyzed, priced and agreed upon and leaves less room later for disagreement, claims and potentially significant change orders and other cost increases than if the project had been competitively bid. The open-book process allows both parties to have input prior to award of a contract. The current on-going and completed contracts to date have proven that the process is successful, that it has been fair and reasonable and that it has resulted in an agreed upon Contract. Future ALP contracts can benefit from these experiences. It is important to note that under P.L. 638, WCA could have elected to utilize a cost reimbursement contract, but chose instead a fixed price contract, because it was confident that its experience and skill would allow it and not the United States to assume the risk of the cost overruns inherent in a fixed price contract. Also, this experience and skill pennits WCA the opportunity over the full scope of the project to obtain a . fair and reasonable profit for the Tribe. a fair and reasonable profit. The process by which the Tribe reviews and approves ALP Project Contracts is depicted by the attached flow chart. The Tribe and WCA are provided with Contract Specifications and Plans to prepare a proposal. Labor rates are set by Davis Bacon, equipment rates are detennined by historical and prevailing industry cost data, and suppliers and subcontractors are solicited to provide multiple competitive quotations. WCA compiles all of this bidding documentation and presents it to the BOR in a formal proposal. WCA and the BOR then attend, sometimes numerous, fact finding and negotiation meetings to discuss production rates, construction methods, general requirements, overhead and profit rates, clarifications and quantities interpreted from the contract documents. Revisions to the proposal are made by both the BOR and WCA until an agreement is ultimately reached. The This process is also time consuming but results in an agreement that is fair and reasonable to both parties. After negotiations, WCA provides the Tribe and its ALP Committee with a recommendation for approval of the Contract. The Ute