Remember the fire truck purchase debacle? As a refresher on November 26, 2013 the Glendale city council accepted a grant of $425,000 from the Salt River Pima-Maricopa Indian Community for the purchase of a new fire truck. Typically grants such as these are good for a year from the date of award.
On January 28, 2014 the purchase of said fire truck was on the council voting agenda for approval. The fire truck’s purchase price was $484,206.92. The price was $59,206.92 greater than the grant awarded to pay for it. It was to be purchased cooperatively using a Houston‐Galveston Area Council (HGAC) purchase agreement. An RFP was to have been issued to solicit local bids but that never occurred. Why an RFP was not used has never been answered satisfactorily.
During the Public Comment portion of the January 28, 2014 council meeting a representative of Freightliner spoke of the irregularities he encountered in attempting to satisfy specifications for the fire truck purchase. After the meeting Fire Chief Burdick went ballistic on this gentlemen in the City Hall lobby. The Freightliner rep’s comments raised enough eyebrows that City Manager Brenda Fischer pulled the item from the agenda. She determined and communicated to council that she would investigate and an RFP would be issued.
Three months later and you can throw those city manager pledges out the window. Word has sifted out from the usually tightly fortified City Hall that the very same fire truck purchase will be up for city council approval sometime this June.
Apparently the Human Resources Department was tasked with investigating any fire employee improprieties in the process and found none. Even if there had been something discovered, it would have been handled internally and neither council nor the public would have been informed.
The reasons given by Tom Duensing, Executive Director for Finances, for reverting to the old process are: 1. Not enough time and 2. Not enough people to manage an RFP. If you buy these reasons I have a bridge in Brooklyn for you. There is already enough information to dust off and to write an RFP in short order. But let’s for argument’s sake, say it took a month to write it. It could be issued by the end of May 2014. Typically an RFP requires 45 days for responses. That gets us to the middle of July 2014. The successful response would then be presented to council for final approval no later than September 2014 (as council vacates either the month of July or the month of August). The grant award is good until November of 2014.
As for lack of people to manage an RFP… Come on, really? Council recently authorized two more bodies in the Purchasing and Procurement Department. Somehow or other the city has managed to issue timely RFPs for a host of other items all this time.
If the City Manager had acted responsively after she pulled the item in January of 2014, at this June 2014 meeting council would be acting on a successful response to an RFP issuance instead of resurrection of the original scheme.
So much for the representations of a new era of governance by senior staff. It’s merely the same old game with new players.
© Joyce Clark, 2014
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I have often wondered about the new people handing our funds – I can’t understand why anything that expensive doesn’t have to be put out for bid. Makes you wonder if anyone is watching the taxpayer money, city, state and federal.
Joyce,
Yes, the reasons for NOT doing an RFP are bogus. Even if you go the cooperative purchase route, there are rules to follow and documentation required. The co-op purchasing is done for two reasons: 1) to shorten the selection time, and 2) because it will save money from getting your own bids. A cooperative purchase agreement must be approved by council and specifications for the truck must be included so everyone knows exactly what is being purchased.
The use of the HGAC co-op for a fire truck includes several fire truck vendors, so there is a wide selection of trucks that can be compared. The City of Avondale used HGAC in February of this year to buy 2 fire trucks. The council packet included over 100 pages of detailed specs on the trucks.
Where are the specs for the Glendale truck?
I cannot help but continue to wonder why the staff is so set on not going out to bid for such a large item? Why would the chief say to one potential bidder that “he would never get a chance to bid on this truck” and then HR a few weeks of investigating the issue says it’s ok to exclude the competition? I agree with Ken co-op purchases does not mean that the city do not have to develop specification for the truck.
The finance director position that they do not have the time or manpower to do what is in the best interest of the citizens of Glendale is only one of many examples of how the quality of the services to the residents is diminishing by the hour. When was the last time you saw a street sweeper in your area? So much for the “balance budget” presentation and statements that cuts to the budget will have no impact on our services levels.
That balance budget presentation is now about $7- millions short of the mark now that the state will not pay for any of the public safety cost associated with Super Bowl.
Joyce,
Joe Hester was in the limelight during the previous fire truck bid, where is he now and where does he stand on this? Is he going to take the lead in making sure that this 2nd try is completely visible and fair to all?