With the city’s contracting process under fire from L.A. officials and local contractors as too cumbersome and inefficient, both city charter reform commissions have taken stabs at reforming the system.

But as with nearly every other issue, they have each taken a different approach.

The Appointed Charter Reform Commission outlines a few general principals like competitive bidding, but leaves the details up to future city councils.

The draft charter proposal stipulates that contracts be awarded to the lowest bidder, except where future city councils pass ordinances to give preferences to locally based contractors. It would also allow the city to make changes to contract parameters once sealed bids have been received. Otherwise, all other details are left to future ordinances.

The Elected Charter Reform Commission’s proposal is more specific. It would eliminate the requirement that the city council approve individual contracts. Rather, city departments would award the contracts, and the council would only get involved if a party objected to the award. In such appeal cases, the city council could veto the contract on a majority vote.

Elected commission chairman and UCLA law professor Erwin Chemerinsky said this would make it easier for the Department of Water and Power to speedily approve contracts. Gaining such efficiencies is considered important as the DWP prepares to compete with private electric service providers, which don’t have to get council approval of contracts. It would have the added benefit of speeding up the contract approval process for everyone, he said.

The elected commission’s draft also proposes reforms aimed at making it easier for a single contractor to be chosen for both the design and the building phases of a project. And it would remove the requirement that departments get contract change orders approved by the board that oversees them, as long as those changes do not exceed a preset dollar amount.