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Friday, May 19, 2006

Ind. Gov't. - Follow-up on: Lake County printing contracts questioned

Some readers may recall the series of entries late last year on Lake County printing contracts. This Feb. 27th, 2006 ILB entry provided a recap. Today the Gary Post-Tribune, in a story by John Byrne, reports:

CROWN POINT — All bidders for Lake County government contracts are not treated equally.

Companies vying for a bridge reconstruction contract worth hundreds of thousands of dollars recently were given the opportunity to resubmit their proposals to correct slight problems: a missing form for Dyer Construction, a bid turned in late for Ellas Construction of Gary.

Eddie Shonk wishes he had been given the same opportunity.

Shonk, owner of A-1 Union Graphics, lost the county’s 2006 printing contract to a higher bidder, Haywood Graphics of Lafayette, because he failed to sign his name to a document in his bid packet.

Two other Lake County printing firms saw their bids, which were also lower than Haywood’s, rejected for the same reason.

When Shonk turned in his 2006 bid in February without a signature on a contract binding A-1 to complete the work if chosen, county attorney John Dull said the Hammond firm had to be taken out of the running.

Yet the Board of Commissioners said they allowed companies to rebid to rebuild the 171st Avenue bridge over Cedar Creek to be sure they got a proposal for the lowest cost possible.

“The bids were too high before,” Commissioner Gerry Scheub said. “By rebidding this, we saved the county probably $200,000.” * * *

But Shonk points out he, too, could have saved Lake County taxpayers money, had he been given another chance to write his name on the bid contract.

A-1 bid a total of $13,582 less than Haywood for three contracts to prints forms and booklets for various Lake County government offices.

P&H Printing of Whiting bid $22,889 less than Haywood for another contract, but also got rejected for failure to correctly fill out the contract.

Dull acknowledged the county applied a double standard to the two sets of contracts.

“We were inconsistent,” Dull said. “We will try to be consistent in the future.”

Posted by Marcia Oddi on May 19, 2006 11:58 AM
Posted to Indiana Government