The May 20,2014 agenda of the EPISD board of managers has another example of what goes on in many of our local governmental purchasing units.
Item E8 on the consent agenda seeks approval of contracts for structured cabling products and services. They want to make the purchase through a buy board, The Allied States Cooperative.
A visit to the cooperative’s web site tells us that they are a “national government purchasing cooperative”.
Local schools
The EPISD agenda item explains that the purchases will be for data wiring of local schools, including a new elementary school.
EPISD staff has not even published the specifications yet. They want permission to hire one of the four local firms each time they are ready to start a project. Formal bidding will not be used. They want to ask the four “to provide competitive quotes based on walk-throughs conducted for each project”.
Ignoring the kinds of mischief that situation could foster let’s focus on how they (the cooperative) advertised their “bid”.
They published their announcements in the “Washington Post”. No kidding.
National cooperative
Allied States tells us that they are a national contracting organization.
Maybe they are.
Reviewing their web site you will see that they are part of our local Region 19 Education Service Center. They offer contract administration so that government organizations across the county can avoid competitive bidding and use their buy board.
All of the contact information for Allied States points us to employees of Region 19 here in El Paso.
Restrictive
Why would our local education service center advertise this in the Washington Post? Could it be that they did not want other local vendors to know about the opportunity? Did they reach out and inform their favored few?
We deserve better
Brutus
elpasospeak 
It sure sounds like a manipulative scheme to me. The fact that it was advertised in the Washington Post and not locally is reason enough to consider it a scheme involving less than honest behavior. Did they identify the four firms? Do any of the four firms have connections to members of the board of managers?
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The School District is required by law to publish in the local paper. As far as the Washington Post I doubt it meets the definition of a generally circulated paper. In fact the only papers that would qualify under state law are the El Paso Inc. and the El Paso Times. and it’s sketchy as to the El Paso Inc.
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The district is required to advertise locally.
The buy board is not.
Neat trick.
Brutus
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Even a regional buy board cannot justify advertising in the Washington Post for these types of services. It suggests that the buy board, too, is attempting to limit responses from local and regional vendors. They are all complicit.
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