FM 1960 Widening — specimen file
FCT-TX-2026-0417 · Every figure traces to a dated public record.
Open the owner specimen PDFScore your bid freeFCT-TX-2026-0417
FM 1960 Widening — Drainage and Driveway Reconstruction
Mostly outside the range
Shown to owners as: Exposed. Same score, same thresholds.
57.7% of your priced dollars sit outside recorded Texas pricing — 57.7% above it, 0.0% below.
Bid total
$1,494,555.50
Exposure above range
$196,701.00
Distance to the low-bid median
$361,264.00
Bid dollars priced
79.3%
Exposure per fee dollar
$26.23
The sixty-second version.
3 of 13 lines are priced above every comparable Texas record for that item at that quantity. Together they sit $196,701.00 above the top of the published range. 7 lines are inside the range. 1 is below it. 2 could not be checked, and the file says so on the first page rather than in a footnote.
For the owner or engineer.
A line-by-line comparison of a construction bid against public records. For each pay item on the bid, Factum looked up every price the published corpus has recorded for the same item, at the same quantity, in the trailing twenty-four months, and reports where this bid’s price sits relative to that record. The answer for each line is one of five words — a verdict — and the verdicts are the product.
Attach it to the record. The file gives you, for every line, a defensible answer to “is this price ordinary?” drawn from the published tabulations rather than from an estimate someone could argue with. 3 lines carry a question worth asking the bidder; 7 do not; 2 you will need another basis for, and the file tells you which. The blank verdicts are your protection — a file that had filled them in would be the one you could not defend later.
A bidder-side file shows the contractor paragraph here instead.
It is not a cost estimate: it does not say what the work should cost. It is not an opinion of fair price: it reports position, not value. It is not a recommendation: it never tells anyone to pay less, bid less, or reject a bid. The engineer decides.
Where each priced line sits against the published range.
3 of 13 pay items are priced above every comparable record held for that item at that quantity in the trailing twenty-four months. 7 fall inside the published range. 1 fall below it. 2 carry no verdict, because the data does not support one.
Position chart
A black mark inside the grey band is a price recorded before at that quantity. A red mark past the right edge is a price higher than any of the comparable records; a mark left of the band is lower than any of them.
Verdict counts
Exclusions
$309,500.00 — 20.7% of the bid — is reported without a verdict, because the data does not support one. No allowance, contingency, escalation, or award-versus-bid adjustment has been applied. Quantities are taken as tendered and have not been independently re-measured from plans.
Pay item schedule
Click any number to see how it was computed. 13 lines.
| Item | Description | Unit | Qty | Bid $/u | Published range | Median | Rec/Let | Verdict | Exposure |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 110-7001 | EXCAV (ROADWAY) | CY | 10,400 | ||||||
| 530-7006 | DRIVEWAYS (CONC) | SY | 1,450 | ||||||
| 644-7073 | REMOVE SM RD SN SUP&AM | EA | 7 | ||||||
| 110-7001 | EXCAV (ROADWAY) | CY | 3,100 | — | |||||
| 530-7010 | DRIVEWAYS (ACP) | SY | 2,600 | — | |||||
| 104-7011 | REMOV CONC (DRIVEWAYS) | SY | 1,380 | — | |||||
| 400-7010 | CEM STABIL BKFL | CY | 185 | — | |||||
| 464-7005 | RC PIPE (CL III)(24 IN) | LF | 210 | — | |||||
| 420-7012 | CL C CONC (ABUT) | CY | 96 | — | |||||
| 540-7001 | MTL W-BEAM GD FEN (TIM POST) | LF | 1,620 | — | |||||
| 542-7001 | REMOVE METAL BEAM GUARD FENCE | LF | 420 | — | |||||
| 544-7001 | GUARDRAIL END TREATMENT (INSTALL) | EA | 70 | — | — | — | |||
| 500-7001 | MOBILIZATION | LS | 1 | n/a | — | — | |||
| Bid total $1,494,555.50 · Total exposure | $196,701.00 | ||||||||
One block per line priced above the published range.
The bid unit price exceeds the highest of 50 comparable Texas records, drawn from 50 separate lettings. The breadth of the letting count matters more than the record count: 50 observations from a handful of lettings would describe those contractors’ pricing, not the market’s. Exposure of $112,346.00 is reported as a screen for negotiation, not a finding that the bid is wrong.
Worked example — the largest finding
Step 1. The tendered quantity, 1,450 SY, falls in the band 1,024–2,048. That band is the cell.
Step 2. The cell holds 50 records from 50 lettings in the trailing twenty-four months. Both exceed the publishing floor, so the cell publishes.
Step 3. The 10th and 90th percentiles of those prices are $84.77 and $160.28. The median is $108.50.
Step 4. The bid, $237.76, is greater than $160.28, so the verdict is ABOVE.
Step 5. Exposure = 1,450 SY × ($237.76 − $160.28) = 1,450 × $77.48 = $112,346.00. No model, no judgment: a lookup and a multiplication.
The bid unit price exceeds the highest of 68 comparable Texas records, drawn from 67 separate lettings. The breadth of the letting count matters more than the record count: 68 observations from a handful of lettings would describe those contractors’ pricing, not the market’s. Exposure of $83,200.00 is reported as a screen for negotiation, not a finding that the bid is wrong.
The bid unit price exceeds the highest of 104 comparable Texas records, drawn from 103 separate lettings. The breadth of the letting count matters more than the record count: 104 observations from a handful of lettings would describe those contractors’ pricing, not the market’s. Exposure of $1,155.00 is reported as a screen for negotiation, not a finding that the bid is wrong.
2 further lines are above range, totalling $84,355.00; all appear in the schedule.
The gate condition behind each refusal.
No published band at this quantity — published bands for 544-7001 EA: 1–2, 2–4, 4–8, 8–16, 16–32, 32–64. The gate binds per quantity band, not per item code — which is why a file can be confident about an item at one scale and silent about it at another. $227,500.00 is reported as unchecked rather than checked against a thin sample.
Lump-sum items have no unit basis, so a percentile range across lettings would compare projects of unrelated size. The result would be arithmetically correct and professionally worthless. Lump-sum items return NOT COMPARABLE without exception.
A reader who discovers later that part of a bid was never checked stops trusting the part that was. Stating the gap on the face of the file costs a line of type and buys the only thing this document actually sells: the reader’s confidence that every other number on it was produced the same way. The blank rows are not a limitation that was disclosed — they are the evidence that the filled rows were not guessed.
For the bidder. Reads only the same published ranges.
This section is produced only for the party submitting the bid, and only on their own bid. It reads nothing but the same published ranges available to the owner. Factum does not accept owner-side and bidder-side engagements on the same letting, and a bidder-side file is never disclosed into an owner-side engagement.
Against the median: 1.51× — the priced lines total $1,185,055.50; the same quantities at the published median total $786,537.20. Against the top of range: 1.01× — the same quantities at the 90th percentile of every range total $1,174,518.10.
Pricing distribution
9 of 11 priced lines sit at or above the published median, and they carry 95.4% of the priced value. That is a posture, and an owner scoring line by line will see it.
Score under each posture
Margin-risk overrun exposure (lines below p10)
| Item | Qty | Band low | Median | Bid $/u | +10% | +20% | +30% |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 542-7001 | 420 LF | $1.56 | $3.25 | $1.10 | $90.30 | $180.60 | $270.90 |
Constraints
- — It will not name, predict, or infer any competitor’s price.
- — It will not state a number to bid. It states an envelope and the evidence behind each boundary.
- — It will not disclose what any other party has bid, on this letting or any other, to anyone.
- — It reads only published ranges derived from public records. It holds no information the owner could not obtain from the same source.
How the score moved across revisions of this bid.
| Rev | Date | Bid total | Score | Tier | Outside band |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| R1 | 2026-09-28 | $1,494,555.50 | 42 | Exposed | 3 |
| R2 | 2026-09-30 | $1,452,300.00 | 58 | Mostly defensible | 2 |
| R3 | 2026-10-02 | $1,494,555.50 | 42 | Exposed | 3 |
R1 — 2026-09-28
42
Exposed
Bid total$1,494,555.50
Outside band3
R3 — 2026-10-02
42
Exposed
Bid total$1,494,555.50
Outside band3
How every figure was produced, in plain terms.
Source
Source: Texas Department of Transportation, Bid Tabulations, Texas Open Data Portal (data.texas.gov, dataset de7b-7dna). Low-bid unit prices from state and local lettings, Sept 2024 – Sept 2026. The dataset reflects bids as received and does not confirm contract award.
Price basis
low-bid unit price (not confirmed award)
Limitations
- — The underlying tabulations publish as-received low bids. A low bid is not always the award, and awards may differ.
- — Every cell cited in this determination is labeled by its true corroboration count; where only one publisher stands behind a cell, the file says Single-source rather than implying consensus.
- — Quantities are taken as tendered. Factum does not inspect sites, re-measure plans, or evaluate means and methods.
If the tendered quantities are materially misstated, the quantity bands applied here are the wrong ones and the ranges cited do not govern. If the specified work differs in kind from the pay-item description, the comparable set is not comparable. If the underlying tabulations contain systematic error, this file inherits it. Each of these is checkable by the reader, which is the point of stating them.
What a reader needs to know.
Questions a reviewer asks
Is this an estimate?
No. An estimate predicts what work will cost. This file reports where tendered prices sit against prices already recorded. It never states what the work should cost, and it is not designed to.
Can I rely on it?
For what it claims, yes. Every figure traces to a public record, and any band can be checked at factumreport.com/coverage. Rely on it for position — where a price sits relative to the record — not for value.
What if the bidder disputes a finding?
A finding is a comparison against public records, so a dispute with it is a dispute with the record. The file gives the engineer the question to ask and the evidence to ask it with. A good answer from the bidder resolves the finding; the file was never the last word.
Why are 2 lines blank?
Because the data does not support a verdict on them, and a file that filled them in would be guessing. Section 07 explains each one, and the blank rows are the reason the filled ones can be trusted.
Why low bids rather than awards?
Because that is what the source publishes, and the file says so wherever it cites that source. For a bidder the low-bid distribution is the right reference: the low bid is the number that competes.
Does a model generate any of these numbers?
No. A language model may read uploaded documents and extract rows. Every price, range, median, count and total is read from the record or computed by arithmetic. No model call appears anywhere in this render path.
What is the difference between this and the engineer’s estimate?
The engineer’s estimate is one number built from assumptions about quantities, productivity and unit costs. This file is a distribution built from what was actually bid, by the contractors who actually compete for this work, at this scale, in this jurisdiction.
What would make this file wrong?
Misstated quantities, work that differs in kind from the pay-item description, or systematic error in the underlying tabulations — the single-source (txdot) basis this file inherits. Each is stated in Section 09, and each is something the reader can check.
Glossary
Verification
Every figure traces to a public record. Verify this determination at factumreport.com/verify by typing the identifier .
Factum is not a licensed estimator, appraiser, or adjuster. This file reports position against public records; it does not state what the work should cost.