By James Bell
Hays Post
Following complaints to Hays USD 489 Board of Education members about a recent $1.3 million bid to upgrade the heating and air conditioning systems at Hays Middle School, the board will look at setting specific policies in place for future project bids.
The recent complaints began following a failure to post a secondary bid for the systems to the USD 489 website. Board members discussed the process at Monday night’s board meeting.
The administration recommended to the board to accept the bid from the Glassman Corp. in Hays, but the board quickly began questioning how the bid was received.
“The question I am receiving is how is this bid being ‘noticed’,” said board member Josh Waddell.
“We talked to the engineer and sat down and went through what the bid specs were going to be,” Superintendent Dean Katt explained. “The engineer then sent bids out to certified companies that could complete the (revised project) work for a first and then a second round of bids, after the first single bid came in over budget.”
A regular step in the second round of bids, however, was missed.
“We didn’t notice this on the (USD 489) webpage?” board member Lance Bickle asked of the administration, to which Katt answered no.
“I think it got overlooked with coming back and re-bidding it, and it was Christmas break,” said Rusty Lindsay, director of buildings and grounds. “There was no agenda there of any kind. It just flat got missed going on the web, would be my guess,” he said.
Without the notice on the web, Bickle was hesitant to vote for the recommendation and accept the bid.
“I guess the concern I have is, I can’t in good conscience vote for this due to the fact that this was not put out publicly, to allow all vendors a fair chance to bid,” Bickle said. “In my opinion, this is the second time on this project we have had issues.”
“There wasn’t intent to deceive or anything on the school’s part,” Lindsay said, telling the board he worked with the engineer to develop the bid. The first bid was developed to “ensure continuity between equipment,” he said, but once the price of doing so was received, it was decided to change acceptable equipment for the project in order to lower the total price tag.
“The reason we re-bid it wasn’t because we weren’t happy with the equipment being bid; it was beyond the budget that we set,” Lindsay said. “So we had to go back and open it up.”
The board looked at the two new bids at their work session last week.
Even with the re-bid project not being put on the website, it was sent to bidders from the first bid round and everyone the engineer had identified as qualified to install the systems. Around eight potential bidders received notification of the revised project.
“I don’t have a problem with how we are doing it. I just think we need to do a better job of letting people know that this is our policy, this is how it’s going to be done,” Bickle said.
Administration had been evaluating the school district’s bid process, even before concerns with the HMS HVAC re-bid had been noted.
“The problem I have is that, technicality or not, we have policies and procedures,” said Sarah Rankin, board member. “That affects people in this town. If we have vendors out there – businesses out there – that could have responded and didn’t because they didn’t know about the second round, that comes back on us.” She also noted that it created the perception of bias.
“There’s procedures, but it’s not board policy,” Katt said.
“We did not post round two of the RFP (Request For Proposal); that’s the whole issue here,” Bickle said in response to an audience member who suggested the current system is sufficient for local business.
The bidder that was recommended for the project by the administration also gave input for the board.
“I bid your project twice, put a lot of work in it, a lot of money,” said Joseph Glassman, president and CEO of Glassman Corp. “We were told this project, if it was under budget, was going to pass and I’m having a hard time understanding that somehow in the last eight hours or sixteen hours I’m getting an email from an engineer that says to our people that (board members) are questioning the bid process.
“The first bid went over the money. Several weeks later I was contacted again for a re-bid. It included more bidders on the bidders list on the top of the letter, and again we bid it and we’re a little better,” Glassman said. “The question that’s not being answered here that the engineer – I’m not going to speak for him – but probably took into account, is that you have to be credentialed and certified to install this equipment.”
When asked by the school board how he can make that claim, he said the equipment manufacturer would say the same.
Glassman informed the board he knew several bidders had been contacted through the process.
“You can open it up to public bidding,” he said. “But the fact of the matter is even if you advertise it, if they didn’t meet the credentials they can’t bid it, unless they prove they can get certified to install the equipment and that’s where the process changes.”
“This is highly specialized equipment. It takes highly specialized equipment to install it and your technicians need to be trained and that’s probably where the difference is here,” Glassman said.
The final vote passed 5-2, with Waddell and Bickle voting against the recommendation to accept the Glassman bid of $1,360,085.34.