Councilors may loosen buying, bid regulations

SOUTH PORTLAND — An ad hoc committee of South Portland officials convened to look at updating the city’s procurement ordinance is calling on new exemptions to the public bid process and increased limits in spending without city approval.

However, it stymied on finding a way to open bids to a negotiation process, helping to ensure that more business goes to local companies. That, said Councilor Tom Blake, was the primary reason he called for the review last summer.

“We should be able to do that,” said Blake. “One time, a local bidder was rejected because of tinted windows. We should be able to talk and negotiate, to go back to somebody who didn’t meet the bid specs.”

But Councilor Rosemarie De Angelis said she was “vehemently opposed” to Blake’s buy-local tactic. “The idea of going back on the bid specs just completely undermines and defeats the purpose of having bid specs at all.

“To me, that’s absolutely absurd,” she said. “If people cannot read the bid specs and meet them, I don’t want to have any further conversation with them.”

“The problem is, how do you even facilitate that negotiation process?” asked the city’s finance director, Greg L’Heureux. “If you have six bidders, but you go to vendor B and say, you were $500 more, but we really want to sell it to you, that’s not a fair process.”

L’Heureux said the best the committee had been able to come up with is a new plan to open up negotiations with individual bidders if all bids are rejected, for whatever reason.

Still some said the local guy should get a leg up, even before bids are opened.

Vincent Maietta, president of Maietta Construction, rose from his seat as the sole interested contractor on hand, to point out that local businesses can often lose to out-of-state firms just because of the higher costs of doing business in Maine. Meanwhile, Maietta said, Maine companies cannot compete in some nearby states, which he claimed have protection rules that require bidders to maintain a local office.

“We’re not asking for a benefit,” he said, “just that you understand the playing field already is tipped a little bit.”

That led to protracted debate on ways to tip the scales in favor of the local bidder, such as requiring that companies from away post a bond for Maine Worker’s Compensation costs.

Although the council spent more than 90 minutes discussing the procurement process, no way was found to guarantee local companies would come out on top. Councilor Alan Livingston said it would be “a disaster” to even try.

“I hesitate to have a trade war on excavation services,” agreed Councilor Tom Coward, “but I would be interested in finding out if this is an issue that we have the ability to address, of if that’s something for the governor.”

Finally, Mayor Patti Smith declared a stalemate, and said the matter would get another workshop review “in a month or two.”

However, the council did reach consensus when it came to the committee’s other recommendations, particularly for upping bid caps untouched since 2003.

Among other changes the proposal would double to $40,000 the size of a formal bid (advertised in the newspaper) that the city manager can award on his own, without seeking approval from councilors. Meanwhile, informal bids (in which at least three vendors are solicited without public advertisement) now awarded by the city manager for purchases of less than $10,000 would be increased to $15,000 and could be awarded unilaterally by department heads, or even by staff, with a department head’s approval.

Also increased, from $10,000 to $15,000, would be the limit on so-called sole vendor bids, in which one company makes a desired product (such as bulletproof vests), or a certain company is desired to match existing infrastructure (such as sewer pumps).

According to statistics provided by City Manager Jim Gailey, under the proposed change, 12 bids totaling $361,492 awarded by the City Council in FY 2011 would no longer need its approval.

Other suggested changes include letting city employees have first dibs on old computers and other IT equipment, before such items are sold to the public.

If changes are approved, credit cards now used by department heads with a $1,000-per-day spending cap would be bumped to a $2,500 daily limit, with use extended to staffers. Other changes are proposed which would ease the city’s ability to sell property acquired via tax foreclosures at so-called “sidewalk auctions.”

Although Blake said he had “a real problem” with increasing the bidding thresholds, the remainder of the council appeared to have no issue with the proposal. The only request was that Gailey provide a regular report of awarded bids.

“I’m not talking restocking the paper-clip drawer,” said Councilor Tom Coward, “but it would be nice to be advised when big purchases are made, just so there’s some public dissemination of the information.”