Work by Matthew Stone

Sept. 24, 2010

The Regional School Unit 2 board eschewed the low bidder in awarding all three of the school district’s plowing contracts last month, and that has selectmen in Farmingdale and Monmouth asking why.

Farmingdale selectmen have sent the school district — which serves Dresden, Farmingdale, Hallowell, Monmouth and Richmond — two letters asking for an explanation about why board members opted for higher-cost plowing contracts.

Monmouth selectmen agreed Wednesday to prepare a letter of their own.

“It’s $20,000 between all three contracts,” Farmingdale selectman Rickey McKenna said. “I think the people deserve to know why.”

RSU 2 put three plow contracts out to bid in early August to cover each portion of the school district’s territory. At an Aug. 11 school board meeting, board members chose:

• the second-lowest of three bidders to plow the property of schools in Dresden and Richmond;

• the third-lowest of five bidders vying to plow out the Hallowell central office and schools in Farmingdale and Hallowell; and

• the second-lowest of three bidders offering to plow the properties of the Monmouth schools.

If board members had chosen the low bidder for all three contracts, the cost over the life of the three-year contracts would have been $20,400 less than it’s expected to be under the contracts signed — or $8,300 this school year.

RSU 2 awarded one-year contracts with the option to renew annually for two more years. If all three contracts last three years, RSU 2 would pay the contractors about $168,500, compared to $148,050 under the lowest bids.

“I just want some answers,” McKenna said. “We’ve done all the cuts we can. We’re on a bare bones budget, and yet they do this.”

RSU 2 Superintendent Donald Siviski sent a letter to Farmingdale selectmen Sept. 7 listing the criteria a school board subcommittee used to recommend contractors. The full board later unanimously accepted the recommendations, Siviski said.

Price wasn’t the only consideration in awarding plow contracts, he said.

“History and reputation are the other part of the decision,” Siviski said. “We have a history with some of these vendors, with having to call them back to clear the school yards or clear the curbs so buses could get around.”

Board members awarded the Dresden-, Richmond- and Monmouth-area plow jobs to vendors who previously held the contracts.

In Hallowell and Farmingdale, however, the school board chose a new contractor — E.C. Barry & Son of Farmingdale — who quoted a three-year price almost $5,700 higher than the quote from the previous contract holder, Gray Brothers Grounds Care of Farmingdale. The three-year price would have been nearly $16,000 lower if board members had hired the lowest bidder, McGee Construction of West Gardiner, according to an RSU 2 spreadsheet.

Siviski declined to discuss the details of why the board chose one contractor over another.

“We’re going to try to answer generically so that we don’t inadvertently shade the reputation of another contractor,” he said.

Siviski noted that the school district reserves the right to award a contract to a vendor who didn’t submit the lowest bid.

“We’re being very prudent with our expenditures,” he said. “But the low bid might not be the low bid at the end of the year.”

The three plow bids come after a budget season when the 2,300-school district cut expenditures by $1.4 million, to $23.6 million. The district cut the operations and maintenance budget — the expenditure line that will pay for snow plowing — by nearly $293,000, to about $2.7 million.

“We’re trying to find efficiencies where we can, but we’re also trying to make smart decisions when we contract,” said Rich Howard, a Monmouth board member and chairman of the board’s building and grounds committee.

McKenna, the Farmingdale selectman, said he wasn’t satisfied by Siviski’s response to Farmingdale, and he’s sent a follow-up letter to Howard requesting a meeting with the RSU 2 board.

Howard said he’d work with Siviski to respond.

“I think we still have some work to do on that,” he said.

Siviski said selectmen would have to follow board protocol in addressing plow bid concerns: They’d have to meet first with a subcommittee and then the full board if the concerns merit it.

Matthew Stone -- 623-3811, ext. 435
mstone@centralmaine.com

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