Change Order Notice - Lawn Servicer - IVHQ

This change order notice represents a contract modification issued by the State of Illinois Department of Veterans Affairs through the Chief Procurement Office for General Services to expand lawn care and grounds maintenance services at the Illinois Veterans Home at Quincy (IVHQ) campus. The incumbent contractor, Best Kept Lawns, currently provides mowing, trimming, and weed control services across the main campus and outlying areas. The scope expansion is necessitated by the completion of a major capital improvement project that included construction of a 210-bed skilled care facility and an 80-bed independent living residence, which resulted in the installation of hundreds of new perennial shrubs and plants throughout the campus in 2025. The expanded maintenance scope includes mulching, application of pre-emergent herbicide three times annually, trimming, fertilizing, and manual weed removal, requiring approximately 40 additional labor hours per week. The vendor has requested a weekly contract increase of $700 for 40 weeks during the annual maintenance season, representing $28,000 per calendar year with a total increase of $56,000 for the remaining two years of the contract. The change order notice, identified as BB Ref. No. 24-497DVA-QUINC-P-51448, was posted on March 10, 2026, with a due date of March 20, 2026, and has been posted on the Bulletin/BidBuy for the required 14-day review period.

The Agency determined that the proposed increase is reasonable and justified, confirming that the circumstances necessitating this contract modification were not reasonably foreseeable at the time of original contract execution, as the extent of new landscaping was unknown and not quantifiable during initial contracting. Best Kept Lawns is the incumbent contractor operating under the existing contract framework, and this change order represents a modification to that existing agreement rather than a new competitive solicitation. No specific set-aside designations, disadvantaged enterprise restrictions, or alternative vendor opportunities are indicated in this change order notice, as this modification applies solely to the current contract holder. The total contract value increase is $56,000 over the remaining two-year contract period, with annual costs of $28,000 per year for the expanded lawn care and landscaping maintenance services at the IVHQ campus.