The Philomath City Council on Monday night approved a contract with a Eugene company that has long handled the electronics and programming behind the city’s water and wastewater systems.
Councilors unanimously voted to authorize City Manager Chris Workman to sign a contract with The Automation Group, known as TAG, retaining the firm as the city’s “integrator of record.”
According to the meeting packet, an integrator of record builds, repairs and programs the electronics that control the water treatment plant, wastewater treatment plant, sewer and booster pump stations, level and pressure indicators, generators and other equipment.
“It’s the same concept as our engineer of record, where we have basically a contractor that we rely on to take care of projects that arise,” Public Works Director Kevin Fear told the council.
Fear said it’s generally better to have the same contractor working across all city projects “so everything’s operating the same and everybody’s on the same page.”
The city advertised a request for proposals and received a single response from TAG.
“There aren’t a whole lot of companies out there that do this sort of work, so it wasn’t really surprising that we only had the one,” he said.
Mayor Christopher McMorran said he had confirmed with Workman that the contract does not represent a change in how the city operates.
“This is something we’ve already been doing. We’re not spending any more money or changing our procedures,” McMorran said. “It’s just putting in writing something that has already been standard practice. I say that so anyone watching knows we’re not creating some new program or some new language.”
According to a staff report, TAG has worked on numerous city jobs, both directly and as a subcontractor, and has regularly responded to emergencies after hours, on weekends and during normal hours.
Fear said having the firm under contract will also save money. The city wants TAG working on the water plant as soon as possible.
“Doing that instead of turning it over to the contractor to supply an integrator, it’s saving us about $400,000,” Fear said. “So we do see cost savings, as well as having somebody we can rely on, somebody we turn to who knows our system and will design and build our system.”
TAG’s 2026 rate sheet lists hourly rates of $179 for programming and instrumentation work, $199 for engineering and design, $219 for senior engineering and $185 for project and construction management. Other rates include $162 for electrical work, $134 for CAD design and $97 for panel shop labor.
Overtime is billed at time and a half, and holiday work at double time. Services carry a two-hour minimum and are billed in half-hour increments from “portal to portal.” Mileage is a flat $50 for round trips of up to 50 miles from TAG’s office and 73 cents per mile beyond that.
