The Tuesday, September 16, 2014 agenda for the El Paso Independent School District board of managers contains a classic example of how local government staffs play favorites when choosing vendors.
The agenda had two separate construction items on it. The backup material shows us how unfair the district can be.
One item was for about $4 million of construction at Milam elementary. One bidder submitted a bid that was higher than the low bid. Staff recommended that the contract be given to the low bidder. That looks right on the face of it.
The higher bidder (Bidder A) was given the highest score possible (3.00) on criteria item 10 (“whether the Bidder’s financial capability is appropriate to the size and scope of the Project”).
The problem
The other construction item was for about $1 million. Bidder A from the previous item submitted the lowest bid but did not get the contract. District staff instead recommended giving the contract to the second lowest bidder.
The recommendation was based on a numerical scoring system that included twelve different criteria. Bidder A was evaluated well across the board, except on item 10 (“whether the Bidder’s financial capability is appropriate to the size and scope of the Project”). Bidder A was given a 2.10 out of 3.00 this time, thus lowering his total score and putting him in second place. He was also dinged for “timely” submission of organizational and other documents in the bid he should have won while he earned the maximum number of points for the same item on the other bid.
Huh?
How can Bidder A be perfectly capable (3.00 out of 3.00 points) to financially handle a $4 million construction contract and only be marginally capable (2.10 our of 3.00 points) to handle a $1 million construction contract on the same day?
The same day!
The answer is that the fix was in. Bidder A had done much work for the school district but evidently has fallen out of favor.
We deserve better
Brutus
elpasospeak 
Good catch there. Much of the general public that doesn’t bid work (which includes your readers and mine) really don’t get excited about this. However, I do.
What happens is that you don’t have the same people at EPISD grading for each project. Bidder A likely dealt with one set of folks for one project and another set for another project. Their experiences differ and you can only guess why.
Our firm has done outstanding work for EPISD in the past, but have been dinged by staff because my mother was kind enough to point out their accounting errors to them. Sometimes personally pride clouds their mind when thinking about who’s on the ball and who isn’t.
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