Issues with district bids

By Harold Gwin

city schools

A state commission had warned the school board that the bid document was flawed.

YOUNGSTOWN — The state fiscal oversight commission controlling city school district finances has some serious issues with the results of the school board’s bidding of a transportation support services contract.

Roger Nehls, commission chairman, said that, from his perspective, the process was flawed and the document the district put out seeking bids was flawed.

He said he advised the district of that before the document came to the commission for approval in July.

It wasn’t changed, and the commission voted to disapprove it, but the school board put it out to bid anyway.

“I continue to be disappointed,” Nehls said Thursday after Tony DeNiro, assistant superintendent for school business affairs, outlined the results of the bidding process for the commission.

Only one company of seven that were sent the bid document responded to what the board was asking for, he said. That was Community Bus Services Inc. of Youngstown.

But Nehls pointed out that two of the companies on the list made it clear they chose not to bid because they felt the bidding process was unfair and didn’t give them sufficient time to prepare.

Companies had several weeks to prepare bids, but CBS representatives had been working with the business committee for months regarding what services the district wanted.

The school board business committee spent about a year working on this issue but the bid document it put together lacked detail and specifics needed to attract competitive bids, Nehls said.

There is no competitive element in the final product. Everyone who submitted a bid bid on something different, he said.

CBS met the bidding specifications for digital video-recorder/global positioning system units for 60 buses; computer software to track bus routing, streamline bus maintenance and transportation payroll; and providing general consulting services.

Youngstown spends about $5 million a year on transportation and the CBS proposal guarantees a $500,000 annual savings. As a condition of the contract, CBS wants the district to give it a five-year extension on its current three-year contract to transport special needs students in the district. That contract is in it’s second year with CBS being paid just over $1.6 million with 3.8 percent annual increases built into the agreement.

That proposed extension raised some eyebrows on the commission as well, with member Paul Marshall saying it appeared that the special needs contract would be subsidizing the transportation services pact.

Commission members also have questions about the guaranteed savings.

Member June Johnson said she’s asked for a line-by-line breakdown of how those savings will be realized. Marshall also questioned how those savings would be generated. Documentation is needed, he said.

The board’s action in proceeding with the bidding process raises questions about its working relationship with the commission which has total control over district spending since Youngstown was placed under fiscal emergency by the state in November 2006.

The commission should be at the point where it is becoming less intrusive into the district’s operation, but the board action shows that the required working relationship is lacking, Nehls said.

That may require an update of the fiscal recovery plan with a focus on how the district needs to operate to control its finances and avoid a return to fiscal emergency, he said.

DeNiro said the business committee is set to make a recommendation on the transportation service contract at a meeting Wednesday. That recommendation will go to the full board and then the oversight commission, he said.

Nehls said he has only one vote on the issue, but it should be clear where his vote will fall.

gwin@vindy.com