|
Superintendent apologizes for bid ‘oversight’
by Gregory R. Norfleet · News · June 23, 2016
The West Branch school superintendent last week apologized to the Board of Education for not presenting all available bids before the school board voted on $141,000 in new laptops.
However, Superintendent Kevin Hatfield believes the bid accepted by the board in May was still the best deal.
“I should have brought the other bids,” he told the board at the June 13 meeting. “So on my behalf, I’m sorry I didn’t show you these other bids.”
Heartland Area Education Assoc. collected and vetted the bids on behalf of West Branch schools for 560 Chromebooks for pupils. However, the Board of Education expected the AEA to forward all viable bids when the AEA finished the process. Only one came to the April meeting.
Board member Mike Owen at the time questioned how the AEA expected the school board to select the best bid when the board only had one given to them. The board directed Hatfield to get the rest of the AEA bids and tabled the vote until then.
In May, Hatfield brought forth two Chromebook bids and, after the board selected Trinity3’s bid, the same bid brought in April, Owen called it “appalling” that the AEA required schools to request remaining bids.
However, in the June 13 board packet, Hatfield said the second bid presented in May did not come from the AEA — the school district got it on its own.
“We reached out to another vendor … and requested an additional bid,” Hatfield wrote in the board packet. He told the West Branch Times he asked school Technology Director Doug Cummings to seek out this second bid.
When the board gathered for its June 13 meeting, Hatfield presented an AEA spreadsheet showing five vendors making nine bids to sell the laptops.
“The district had that bid before the April 11, 2016, Board meeting, and looking back we should have included these quotes in the Board Packet,” Hatfield wrote in a memo to the board.
In the memo, Hatfield thanked Owen for “bringing the bid oversight to our attention.”
“Mr. Owen, like all of our Board members, works tirelessly to hold our leadership team (accountable) for doing great work — and that is how it should be!” Hatfield wrote, a comment he reiterated at the board meeting.
Trinity 3’s bid offered each stripped-down laptop for $179, and each one loaded with software and covered by warranty for $252. All together, the bid cost $141,000.
In the spreadsheet, which only shows prices for stripped-down laptops, Trinity3 made four of the nine bids, with two featuring Chromebook Lenovos and two featuring Dells, with prices ranging from $165 to $259. The lower Lenovo bid had 2GB of memory; the bid forwarded to West Branch that won board approval had 4GB of memory. As a side note, the Lenovo models offered in the bid were discontinued yet Trinity3 offered the same price for the new models.
Of the remaining five bids, base prices ranged from $199 to $269 each. Two bids came from CDI Computer Dealers Inc., and one each came from Midwest Computer Products Inc., Brown & Saenger, and Troxell Communications Inc.
“It really was the best bid we had from the AEA at the get-go,” Hatfield told the board. “It wasn’t lucky, it wasn’t anything, it was — that was the bid.”
Owen said he appreciated Hatfield getting the information to the board and he understands sometimes things get lost in the “communication process.”
“Next time they’ll know we want this,” Owen said.
Hatfield agreed.
“We do our best to be as transparent as we can,” Hatfield said. “There isn’t anything to hide.”
AEA Purchasing Coordinator Laurie Hoing wrote in an e-mail to the Times saying “there were 17 vendors that responded to the various line items” and vetted by the AEA’s Technology Advisory Committee.
“AEA Purchasing does not recommend or select what equipment West Branch Community Schools (or any other member) purchases, nor are any members required to use AEA Purchasing contracts,” she wrote.
When asked why, if not making a recommendation, the AEA only forwards one bid, Hoing responded that schools “generally understand that there was a competitive process followed to determine awarded items/vendors.”
“It is common practice in the procurement field to announce only the winning vendor/items, and then also in this age of technology, only publish awarded information on the Internet,” she wrote in a statement.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
