Within reason, yes. Engineers will still evaluate the proposals and if there’s a huge discrepancy like you described, they can be thrown out. But often part of

Within reason, yes. Engineers will still evaluate the proposals and if there’s a huge discrepancy like you described, they can be thrown out. But often part of the game seems to be first underbid (within reason) to get the contract and then make up the difference on change orders to be profitable.