Does this sound familiar to Lake County, FL residents?
It seems the Inspector General of Chicago found that city staff "circumvented competitive bidding rules" to award a $23-million radio contract to Motorola.
This sounds familiar to our readers, who have read about a Lake County contract for $32-million that was awarded a few years ago to Motorola without any local competitive bidding. Originally, the staff issued a request for interest (rfi) to identify interested bidders. They got a very large proposal from Motorola and one from a smaller group pitching a different technology that would use radio towers already in place and cost about 50% of the Motorola bid. Staff rejected the competitor's proposal and would not allow them to submit a revised bid. Then, rather than re-publishing and requesting more bids from other competent bidders, they went and used an existing Motorola bid in another county, which is called "piggy backing". We here call it "sole source" bidding, and this has been a controversial subject that was even brought up in recent elections.
Favorite quotes from the Chicago Tribune article below:
“OEMC had falsified documents to push the initial purchase through an unrelated contract with the vendor,” the report concluded. “OEMC essentially ‘bootstrapped’ a $23 million contract on an earlier, $350,000 fraudulently obtained purchase.”
The report went on to say that when investigators began asking questions, they had trouble determining “who was responsible, because of the debilitating combination at (Emergency Management) of high turnover, endemic finger-pointing, poor or non-existent internal controls and missing paperwork.”
But, I should say that it is my observation that Lake County does have more dedicated staff than you might find in Chicago. And, there was never any police or legal investigation of the local Lake County bidding, so there is no evidence of wrongdoing that has been evaluated in court.
So, maybe after reading this, Lake County, which does NOT have an inspector general, might start requiring more competitive bids on projects. And, if you read the details at the end of the article about other waste & fraud cases, you might really wonder what else could be happening since Lake County does not have an Inspector General to find similar problems. If not, wait until the next elections.
vj
From the Chicago Tribune HERE
October 18, 2010
Watchdog: Chicago 911 officials skirted bidding on $23 million contract
Posted by Hal Dardick at 4:50 p.m.; updated at 5:29 p.m. with Huberman statement
City officials circumvented competitive bidding rules to steer a $23 million digital-radio contract to Schaumburg-based Motorola, according to City Hall's top watchdog and documents obtained by the Tribune.
Inspector General Joseph Ferguson concluded the officials at Chicago's 911 center falsified paperwork to justify giving the contract to a pre-selected firm. That company is identified as Motorola in documents obtained by the Tribune through an open records request.
Office of Emergency Management and Communications officials said using Motorola would preserve “the city’s prior investment of nearly $2 million” in Motorola equipment bought earlier. But the city actually paid only $350,000 for that equipment, according to Ferguson’s report.
“OEMC had falsified documents to push the initial purchase through an unrelated contract with the vendor,” the report concluded. “OEMC essentially ‘bootstrapped’ a $23 million contract on an earlier, $350,000 fraudulently obtained purchase.”
The report went on to say that when investigators began asking questions, they had trouble determining “who was responsible, because of the debilitating combination at (Emergency Management) of high turnover, endemic finger-pointing, poor or non-existent internal controls and missing paperwork.”
The agency justified not going through a formal bidding process in May 2005 when Ron Huberman was executive director. Huberman, a longtime lieutenant to Mayor Richard Daley who is now chief of the Chicago Public Schools, said today in a telephone interview that he only led the department for 13 months.
In a follow-up written statement, Huberman said he “was disappointed” that employees of his at the time did not follow proper procedure. “I regret that some of this misconduct occurred during my tenure,” he said. “As a City commissioner who has always made it a priority to ensure that all policies and procedures are followed, I should have reviewed the document in question more carefully."
The request to award the contract without bidding was approved by the city’s Sole Source Review Board, and Ferguson recommends in his report that the board’s meetings should be public. The Department of Procurement Services, which oversees that board, rejected that idea, the report states.
Ferguson’s report said Emergency Management and Communications’ “long running failure to effectively manage the procurement and contract process presents a significant risk to the city’s emergency preparedness, fiscal security and grant compliance.”
It goes on to state that the inspector general’s office “is not suggesting the city’s current emergency preparedness is substandard. We did not evaluate that.”
The report also recommends everyone involved in sole source contracts sign off on their work and disclose their role. And it suggests vendors not be allowed to “ghost-write” the requests.
Details about the contract came in Ferguson’s latest quarterly report, part of his office’s effort to make its work more transparent.
The report documented investigations concluded between July and September, including Ferguson’s probe into an unqualified job applicant allegedly clouted in to a well-paying inspector’s job. That probe, revealed by the Tribune in August, determined the inspector falsely claimed he had worked as a manager at his father’s construction firm since he was 10 years old.
In other cases:
*Two Department of Public Health Nurses allegedly swiped in or out of work from facilities near their homes, even though they didn’t work in those locations. Both were suspended.
*In another Health Department case, two phlebotomists and a certified medical assistant allegedly were swiping in and out near their homes, falsely extending their work time. Proceedings to fire those workers were started.
*The report also accused a city-funded agency executive director who stole more than $250,00 in Head Start funds by depositing them into a personal bank account. The statute of limitations had expired, so the city could not pursue a criminal case, but the executive director has been barred from doing any future work funded by the city.
*Other cases concluded by Ferguson’s office included a Department of Transportation official who oversaw a contract under which relatives worked, certification of a minority-owned business that should not have qualified and a Transportation Department official who got jobs for a son with three companies doing city business.
*A foreman in the Department of Streets and Sanitation resigned amid the finalization of a probe into his use of pornographic Internet sites at work.
*A former Office of Compliance internal audit section employee accepted over $3,500 in gifts, including tickets to sporting events and meals, from city vendors. Ferguson recommended the former employee be placed on a do-not-hire list, and the companies be prohibited from doing further city business.