The Examiner U-46 News Feed
U-46 Board approves pacts, fees and proposals
By Seth Hancock
The Board of Education in School District U-46 unanimously approved a three-year contract costing $1.5 million for internet and wide area network services, but further questions were raised about the bid process on Monday, Feb. 26. The board also approved school fees for the 2018-19 school year as well as over $500,000 in expenditure proposals.
Comcast was the winning bidder to provide both services, but when the proposal first came to the board on Feb. 6 a representative from WOW Business, which bid only on the internet portion of the contract, questioned the process. WOW came in with the lowest bid, $18,180 lower than Comcast, for internet but lost the bid by a point on the evaluation score sheet.
The administration said there were six categories scored (price, technical functionality, completeness and accuracy of proposal, references and experience, service and support, price of ineligible goods and services) and Comcast edged WOW across all categories.
On the night of the vote, another bidder questioned the process. There were four qualified bidders of the contract and another, AT&T, was disqualified.
Rob Moskal, an AT&T representative, spoke during public comments and said they didn’t learn that they were disqualified until seeing the board minutes. He said AT&T had competitive pricing and would have come in lower than Comcast.
Ultimately, the administration said it came down to a calculation error on AT&T’s proposal, and U-46 was unable to provide a correction to that error due to it being a sealed bid.
Board member Jeanette Ward said that “the process stipulated that we could not reopen after the bid had already been submitted” and asked the administration for a public explanation of the process.
Bruce Phelps, senior business official, said the bid was opened in December and after receiving the proposals the district contacted each bidder to verify that prices were given as “site only.” He said there are 59 edge sites and two core sites.
“We wanted to make sure that we’re representing each price correctly so when we added up the total sites it comes out to the right dollar amount,” said Phelps who added: “We cannot change the price that they put on there regardless of whether it’s wrong or not.”
Phelps said that AT&T did admit to making a mistake on totaling its price sheet and if U-46 were to reopen the bid for them to correct the error “we’d have to open up to everyone else in seal bidding. We cannot do that. It’s against state law.”
Board members Phil Costello and Sue Kerr asked for clarification that the error wasn’t known until after the bids were unsealed, which Phelps said “right, because it’s a sealed bid.”
Board member Traci Ellis said the calculation appeared to be correct from AT&T but the mistake was on how long they thought the contract was for. Phelps said “the monthly cost was correct,” but AT&T calculated for a longer-term than the three-year contract.
Ward asked if the motivation for sealed bids was to avoid bidding wars saying “if someone came in lower, than someone else could also come in lower,” and Phelps said that was correct and “it would be an endless cycle.”
Board member Veronica Noland asked what the district could ask bidders after the bids are unsealed to which Phelps said “I can ask for clarification, but it cannot change the data that they gave me. I can’t change the dollar amount that they provided us on the document.”
Noland asked why AT&T was fully disqualified when there were other categories scored beyond just pricing, and Phelps said “if they don’t start off the data right” then it won’t be considered. Phelps added that the district held a pre-bid meeting with all the vendors providing the information needed to bid.
The contract will be paid for through the education fund, but the district will seek e-rate funding with the federal government in which U-46 would be reimbursed 80 percent ($1.2 million) of the expense. E-rate funds are paid by the nation’s taxpayers through a tax imposed by the federal government on cell phone bills.
Kerr asked if the district would lose the ability of receiving the e-rate funds if it reopened the bid to allow AT&T a chance and Phelps said it would. Board member Melissa Owens asked if that was because of the timing and Phelps responded it was.
Also approved unanimously were next year’s school fees which will remain the same except for the driver education textbook fee which will be reduced from $37 to $13.
Three other expenditure proposals were approved unanimously including a $245,239 expense with CDW Government to provide more WiFi coverage to elementary schools. The expenditure will come out of the education fund while the district will seek e-rate funding.
Another proposal with both Dell Marketing ($133,562 for 395 chromebooks) and Heartland Business Systems ($93,160 for 170 HP probook 11 G2) was approved and will be paid for by the nation’s taxpayers through Title I funding.
A proposal with Tyler Technologies, Inc. costing $79,195 for an annual license renewal for MUNIS software was approved, and it will be paid for through the education fund.
The board also voted 7-0 to approve of $9.3 million in itemized bills..
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