elpasospeak

The job order contracts that Region 19 just issued deserve further attention.  See Competitive Bidding? — Baloney!

The masthead of their web site reads “Serving El Paso and Hudspeth Counties”.  They are more properly known as “Education Service Center — Region 19”.  Again from the front page of their web site “The purpose of Education Service Center (ESC)-Region 19 is to aid teachers and administrators in the El Paso area in their role as educators of our children.”

They are a service organization for kindergarten through high school institutions in El Paso and Hudspeth.

Why then did they just issue contracts for  National Job Order Contracting Services?

National?  Yes the firms  are allowed to  offer services under these contracts in  Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Florida, Georgia,  Idaho, Illinois, Louisiana, Maryland, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nevada,  New Mexico, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, Tennessee, Utah, Virginia, Wyoming.

Oh, and by the way Texas too.  For good measure two of the seventeen firms are allowed to offer their services in “all states and US territories”.

That’s pretty impressive.  Little ole El Paso based Region 19 is competent to manage construction specifics in every state of the Union as well as all of the United States territories.

We know better.

What are they doing here?  Texas law allows certain state government entities to issue job order contracts for construction.  Texas law also allows certain groups (including not for profits, and out of state groups) to piggyback on existing contracts issued by other agencies.  That way an entity like the department of something-or-other in let’s say Puerto Rico can buy off of the Region 19 contract if the laws in Puerto Rico allow it.

Why would Region 19 bother?  I have not found out yet what the amount is but Region 19 can get a percentage or fee from the contractor.  In the case of the Houston based group that the City of El Paso has been buying from the fee is 4%.  The construction company has to pay 4% of what if charges El Paso agencies  to Houston.

So Region 19 is doing it for money.  I seriously doubt that they have expertise in every state and territory of our country but that does not evidently matter.  They are allowing governments to avoid competitive bidding and charging a fee for the chicanery.

Are they so good at what they do for us locally that they have extra time to manage construction in every state?

What are you called when you make money by allowing someone to avoid doing what is right?

Time shall unfold what plighted cunning hides:

Who cover faults, at last shame them derides

We deserve better

Brutus

Here are some specifics about the buy-board contracting that the City of El Paso has been involved in lately.

You will recall that they recently issued a $4 million dollar contract through a Houston based purchasing organization.  This money looks like it is going to be used to remodel the building the city is going to move into.

Some at the city claim that it was competitive bidding:

Decide for yourself:

• The request for proposals (RFP) was what is commonly called a “beauty contest”.  The evaluation criteria used gave points to each bidder for such things as the bidder’s references (15%), reputation (10%), ability (35%), ownership (underutilized businesses could get 5%), and price (25%).  References and reputation add up to 25% and sound like the same thing to me.  Ability must have been judged subjectively.  With those subjective judgments we are at 60% of the evaluation and it comes down to who looks prettier to the judge.  10% was awarded for something called “Value Add”, whatever that is.  I would think that “Value Add” is in the eye of the beholder.

• The bidder;s price only accounted for 25% of the evaluation factors.  Price is 25% — how can that be a bid?

• Pricing was based on what portion the bidder would charge of a nationally published price estimating book (the Oxford Dictionaries define estimate as “roughly calculate or judge the value”).  The book does not reflect current market conditions, it lists historical values that are gathered from survey respondents, in other words what something used to cost on average.   The prices do not reflect current market conditions in El Paso.  When times are tough construction prices go down after all.  Bidding is supposed to use market price to determine the lowest offer.

There are several buy boards in Texas that offer these kinds of contracts.  The city only uses the Houston based one for this work.  The board charges 4% for its services while other buy-boards charge less.

The company that the city chooses each time from this buy-board is only one of twenty or so eligible contractors that are listed for this area.  Other contractors are available.  Why does the city only choose this one?

Staff at the City of El Paso claims that this purchasing method saves time because detailed specifications do not have to be drawn up.  For $4 million dollars, why not?  The point is moot however.  The $648 thousand the city awarded the other day had plans drawn up by an architectural firm.  The $694 thousand they spent with this same firm for a new roof for our soon to be destroyed city hall had plans drawn by an architectural firm.  If the city has plans, why not take it to bid?  You can’t tell me that the city did not know about this need a month ago.  After you advertise for the legally required two weeks and perform your evaluation you can process a bid in one month.  That is tight, but it can be done and done fairly.

The sad fact is that this is favoritism.

• Other buy-boards that are less expensive are available
• Other firms are available — even on this buy board
• The city keeps choosing the same firm from a field of many qualified firms

We deserve better