UPDATED FRIDAY, APRIL 6: The Peachtree City Council Thursday night voted unanimously to halt the award of a no-bid contract to South Carolina-based information technology firm VC3.
Instead, citing public criticism brought on by The Citizen newspaper front-page story Wednesday, the council instructed city staff to draw up a request for proposals (RFP) and open a 30-day period in which local IT businesses will have a chance to bid on the project.
Complete story later.
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EARLIER PRINT AND ONLINE VERSION —
Peachtree City officials plan to spend $472,909 — without seeking competitive bids or alternative proposals — for the first phase of a sweeping computer technology upgrade that has been put off for several years due to reduced revenues.
And the work is being awarded to the same company that assessed the city’s computer system in recent months: VC3 of Columbia, S.C.
City officials said the exclusive use of VC3 for the deal, and a separate $18,476 a month contract for IT services for three years, is because of VC3’s expertise, reputation and extensive experience with municipal governments. Over the life of the contract, monthly IT costs total $665,136.
The total cost of the package to city taxpayers comes to $1.138 million, all without sealed bids being sought or local IT companies being consulted. No bids were sought for the initial analysis either, city officials said.
Finance Director Paul Salvatore said it also would have cost the city more to select another vendor for the project, because the city would likely have to pay a second time for the same technology assessment that VC3 recently conducted of the city’s computers, networks and servers.
The $18,000 a month contract for IT services is needed not only to replace the recently-departed city IT director, but it will allow the city to make technological progress it was unable to make with its three-man IT department that is now down to two staffers, Salvatore said.
The contract is also designed so the city or VC3 can opt out with a 60-day notice, Salvatore noted.
The City Council is expected to vote on the contracts at its meeting Thursday night, along with a separate deal that would provide monthly IT services to the city for $18,476 a month to replace the recently-vacated position of IT director.
Of the computer upgrade cost, $330,410 is going towards equipment and software, while the provider, VC3, will be paid $142,498 to install the system. Finance Director Paul Salvatore said VC3 guaranteed that the equipment would come in lower than the “state contract” price which the city formerly used to acquire computers, and he noted that the state contract system is a formal bid system operated by the state of Georgia.
So far that has saved the city $9,000 from what the computers would have cost.
City policy requires the use of bids for items over $10,000, but the city can avoid that process by selecting a particular “brand name” company like VC3, which has a number of governmental clients, according to Salvatore.
The reason VC3 was selected is in large part due to the company’s recent work to assess the city’s technology and provide recommendations for equipment and procedural upgrades, Salvatore said. Had the city put the process out to bid or sought proposals, those prices would have been higher than VC3’s because the lowest-bidding company would have wanted to conduct its own assessment of the city’s technology, which VC3 has already accomplished, Salvatore said.
“The kicker for using them right now is that we just paid them to do this assessment,” Salvatore said. “They have collected all the data and all the knowledge of our system, what we have in our inventory and came forward with recommendations on how we move forward. And right in the midst of all that our systems administrator up and resigns to take another job.”
Selecting another company for the computer purchase and installation would cost the city time as well as additional funds, Salvatore said.
Salvatore acknowledged that the city didn’t seek informal price quotes from other companies, but he said that isn’t the way such matters can be handled by the city. In addition to the promise on keeping the hardware and software totals under the state contract prices, VC3 is also motivated to give the city a good deal so the city will continue its relationship with the firm, Salvatore added.
“VC3 has a great, proven reputation of doing good work in the past for the city and other cities where (City Manager) Jim (Pennington) has worked,” Salvatore said. “They really specialize in municipalities and cities.”
The bidding process generally requires the city to take the lowest bidder absent any other reason. The request for proposal (RFP) process, however, allows the city to create a weighted grading scale from which to judge each company’s proposal so the best firm can be selected for the best price.
However, the brand name acquisition process was used in this instance because of VC3’s reputation and its previous experience with the city, which includes a technology assessment conducted in 2003 in addition to the assessment conducted in recent months, Salvatore said. He also noted that City Manager Jim Pennington has had success with VC3 in previous cities where he has worked.
Salvatore noted that Pennington has experienced a computer upgrade which ran into trouble in another city with a different technology vendor, and the city had to ditch the vendor and bring in VC3 to get the work done correctly, at a greater cost to the city.
VC3’s proposal, once implemented, will create a network that will allow all city computers to be upgraded remotely with anti-virus updates and other software changes, which will save significant staff time, Salvatore said.
“Right now it’s a lot more work intensive for staff to maintain,” with the city’s existing technology, Salvatore said.
The city has had some technology issues recently including an email server that crashed and had to be replaced, Salvatore said. VC3 is recommending the city pare its servers down from 15 to about two or three, which will help with maintenance issues as well, he noted.
VC3 will also help the city improve technology in the fire and police departments to upgrade functions with the county’s new computer-aided dispatch system used by the Fayette County 911 center, Salvatore said.
VC3 will also have to parse out how to migrate data from the 20-plus different computer applications that Robinson created while he was here, in large part to save the city money.
“Somebody’s got to get in there and figure out in every one of them: how to maintain and service that,” Salvatore said.
As for the $18,000 a month service contract, approximately half of the cost will be covered by the salary and benefits by leaving Robinson’s position vacant, Salvatore said.
The city also can terminate the annual contract with 60 days notice if it decides it no longer needs the services, Salvatore said. For example, once the new upgrades are running and stable, the city may decide it can handle the rest of its IT needs in-house, he said.
“If we can maintain what we’ve got here in a more economical way, we’re not locked in with them indefinitely,” Salvatore said.
The contract is an annual deal that automatically renews for three consecutive years, Salvatore said.
One of the benefits of having VC3 help the city routinely is because of the depth of knowledge of their staff, which has specialists covering a variety of areas, Salvatore said.
Using VC3 will allow the city to be more proactive with technology issues instead of being reactive to problems as they crop up, Salvatore said.
