Technological problems explain the latest questions surrounding the bidding process for a $61 million sewer repair contract, DeKalb County officials said.
Officials responded late Friday to the new set of questions posed by Granite Inliner, Inc., a Tucker-based firm that was not recommended as a winning bidder for the hefty contract. Since late April, Granite Inliner representative Jesse Cole has asked the county on at least three occasions to explain potential irregularities in the selection process.
All of the inquiries have involved documentation related to DeKalb’s long-troubled Local Small Business Enterprise (LSBE) program, which is aimed at helping small businesses get their share of lucrative government contracts. And all of the complaints have been deemed clerical mistakes that did not impact the county’s ultimate recommendation for awarding the contract.
The issues, though, point again to long-standing questions about the LSBE program, which has for years been plagued by allegations of poor oversight and shoddy record-keeping.
“Any errors in the bid process are unfortunate and we believe this exercise has reinforced the need for strong oversight of the LSBE program and bid review process,” Cole wrote in his most recent letter, dated May 29.
In a statement sent to The Atlanta Journal-Constitution on Monday afternoon, county officials pointed out that the contract was put out to bid before Cathryn Horner, the current interim chief procurement officer, took over that role. But they also acknowledged past shortcomings.
“Much progress and improvement has been made, however, the administration recognizes that there is still work to be done to build a purchasing and contracting department that is deserving of the public trust,” the statement said.
In Cole’s most recent letter, he asked why a pair of subcontractors listed on a winning bidder’s application were not included in the county’s online database of registered LSBE vendors — and wondered if they were LSBE vendors at all.
The county said Friday that the subcontractors in question were indeed registered with the LSBE program. Officials provided documentation of the subcontractors’ certification with the program and blamed technology for them not appearing online.
“The Certified Vendor List is generated on a monthly basis using a computer system, which unfortunately, sometimes has issues populating and including every LSBE,” interim chief purchasing officer Cathryn Horner wrote in a letter to Cole.
Horner said the county’s recommendation for awarding the contract still stands. County commissioners have not yet voted on the contract award but could do so as early as Tuesday.
In a previous letter sent in late April, Cole had raised questions about the address listed for a subcontractor on a commission agenda item. Officials said the erroneous address appeared only on the one document, which was printed after the bidding process was complete.
In yet another letter, Cole asked the county to investigate whether an LSBE subcontractor used a DeKalb County address to register with the program when it was actually based out of Newton or Rockdale County. In some instances, contractors that include DeKalb-based small businesses are given more preference on bids than if they used subcontractors from other parts of metro Atlanta.
Officials said they confirmed that the subcontractor was indeed based out of Stone Mountain. They said a Newton County address included on one document was the home address of the business’ owner, and that a Rockdale County address listed on another document belonged to one of the business’ employees. They said the error was committed by the vendor.
DeKalb officials also said that, even if the error had happened during the actual bidding process, it would not have been a factor in their final recommendation. Because of the way the contract was bid, there was no weight given to the locations of LSBE subcontractors.
All of Cole’s recent letters referenced the LSBE program’s issue-plagued history.
An external audit of DeKalb's overall procurement published last year raised significant questions about the LSBE program's management.
In March, a long-awaited internal audit of the LSBE program was released. It found a litany of fundamental problems within the program, including a lack of standard operating procedures, poor oversight, lax or non-existent documentation and potential cybersecurity risks.
That audit was released about a month after Felton Williams, procurement project manager for the LSBE program, was reassigned to the county's facilities management department. At the time, county officials described Williams' relocation as "part of an ongoing process to improve the effectiveness of DeKalb County government."
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