No-bid contracts to purchase and install computer equipment for $472,909, and a potential $665,136 for three years of computer services from the same firm, were scrapped by the Peachtree City Council Thursday night. Instead, the city will use its “request for proposals” (RFP) process for the equipment and services, which will allow other firms to compete for the work.
The city’s RFP process is designed to provide weight to a firm’s expertise along with price and other factors such as experience and recommendations … all of which are used to assign a score to each firm submitting a proposal.
City staff had proposed to use South-Carolina headquartered VC3 for both no-bid contracts, with the service deal at $18,476 a month designed to help fill the void left by the city’s recently resigned IT director.
Those contracts were criticized by the public after The Citizen printed a story on the no-bid contracts in Wednesday’s paper.
Councilman George Dienhart said he understood why city staff made the proposal, but he thinks the city “needs to be extra vigilant about putting this stuff out to bid.”
“The citizenry spoke loudly after the newspaper article, and they were right,” Dienhart said. “It’s not often that a no-bid contract comes in at the lowest possible cost.”
Both contracts were recommended by city staff without seeking bids or proposals from other firms because of VC3’s expertise in the municipal field, its reputation and level of expertise, which outstrips the capabilities of the city’s existing IT department, city officials said earlier this week. VC3 also conducted the city’s recent technology assessment and performed a similar function for the city back in 2003.
Council unanimously voted to direct staff to run both the computer purchase and installation and the IT service contract through the RFP process.
VC3 will still be able to present a proposal as part of that process, said City Manager Jim Pennington.
Mayor Don Haddix bristled at the “last-minute” criticism of the deal because, he said, it was discussed at the City Council retreat. Staff’s formal proposal to select VC3 on a sole source basis and the related contracts, however, were first published by the city six days earlier as part of the packet of information provided to council members and the public in advance of the Thursday’s meeting.
Peachtree City resident Costas Soulakos, who owns a local computer business, said he didn’t need the city’s business but he thought the issue was a very important one for the city.
“I think that for the city of Peachtree City to spend a million dollars, without a bid, is unheard of,” Soulakos said. “So I don’t know why you’re surprised at some of this coming up and saying ‘Hey, you need to do your due diligence.’”
Soulakos said the city “deserves to have more proposals than just one,” since different firms could devise different technology solutions. An independent consultant could help the city sort between solutions proposed by various tech companies at little cost, he said.
“Whether it’s cheaper, more expensive, it’s the right solution, unless you get bids and get proposals from different companies, you’re not going to be able to tell,” Soulakos said.
Soulakos also noted that it was strange that a firm from South Carolina would be selected for the work. Mayor Don Haddix later replied that VC3 does have an office in the Atlanta area. VC3 is headquartered in South Carolina.
It will take several weeks to prepare the RFP process and then an additional 30 days for firms to submit proposals before council can consider a selection, Pennington noted. Several retired citizens who have been in the technology business “for many years” have volunteered to help the city in the proposal vetting process, he added.
Although the three-year service contract would have totalled $665,136 the city and VC3 had opt-out clauses predicated on 60 days advance notice from either party, city officials said. Also, more than half of that cost was covered by salary and benefit savings from leaving the IT director’s position vacant, city officials said.
The city is receiving temporary IT services from VC3, which the city initially engaged to conduct a technology assessment of the city for $32,000. One of the main reasons VC3 is being used for the temporary services is because its employees are certified to handle the city’s public safety computer systems, City Manager Jim Pennington added.
Pennington later noted that part of the assessment by VC3 was that 10 of the city’s 17 servers “are ready to crash.”
Pennington added that he would rather not put any “new programs on our broken system” until the computer system can be repaired.
The recommendations from VC3’s assessment will be used to draw up the specifications for the proposals the city will seek from other firms, he added.
Haddix said he thought other companies will want to duplicate the work conducted by the VC3 assessment which will increase the cost to the city in the RFP process.
Councilmember Kim Learnard replied that the VC3 recommendations could be sent out so firms could make alternate proposals “with a price tag so you can get it done optimally as the low bidder sees fit.”
Councilman Eric Imker credited the newspaper article for creating a public interest to halt the no-bid contracts.
“I feel like I’m a puppet on a string right now, beholden to the newspaper,” Imker said. “This whole issue was played extremely well by the editor of the paper by putting it as the headline, the way it was produced, the headline, the sub by-line, and the next couple of paragraphs in that newspaper article did the job. It got the citizens riled up, got our awareness raised. Not that it wasn’t going to be challenged anyway by the time it got to us, but it was played well and I congratulate that effort.”
