IFBKM25029 guardrail handrail bid award protest
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It is a stretch of the recording that this archive identified as a separate matter — a call to order, a recess, or something taken up that the agenda does not list. There is no official title, no staff recommendation and no disposition, because the county never recorded one. Everything below is inferred.
The source document
The county’s agenda for Board of County Commissioners, Jul 15, 2025
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The county’s minutes for Board of County Commissioners, Jul 15, 2025
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What was said
Machine transcription of 19m of recording, with speaker names inferred from voice matching. 82% of 73 lines carry a name. It shows what was said, not what was decided, and both the words and the names can be wrong.
To the afternoon session of the Board of County Commissioners meeting for July 20 14? 15? 2025. So we had some unfinished business from this morning, uh, which we are going to take up first. Um so uh let's get on to our um I don't remember the number. C
Good afternoon, Carrie Roberts, Purchasing Director. We are here to discuss a bid award protest. It is IFBKM25029, ongoing and as needed guardrail, handrail installation and materials. So we opened the bid on The second 25th of February we received three bids, one from C Slater Construction, one from Grading Bushhog Services, and one from Southeast Highway Guardrail and Attenuators. We received a memo of a recommendation of
award from Public Works to award to two vendors, Grading Bushhog Services and Southeast Highway Guard Rail. We received a protest on the third 19th of March from Southeast. Denied that protest through the county administrator's office. There was additional information requested by Southeast, and then we denied it on the fourth of I'm sorry, the 22nd of April. The basis for the protest from Southeast is that they do not feel South it slate. Excuse
me. Slated grading Bush Hog and Hog Services should be eligible because they did not bid on all items. Our response was that the bid clearly states that we can award to more than one vendor if found to be in our best interest. It also states that we reserve the right to reject any or all bids in whole or in part to award by any item, groups of items, total bid, or accept the bid that is most advantageous and in the best interest of the county. We denied the protest on the 22nd of April and as a result the protesters asked to come before you all.
Our recommendation is that you uphold the decision by the County Administrator to deny the protest and to award the contract to both Grading and Southeast. That is the purchasing side. We have Southeast is here and they'd like to give a presentation as well.
Okay.
Carrie, have you set up time frames?
I'm sorry?
Ten minutes, sir.
And are are both sides gonna take ten minutes?
No ma'am, Grading Bush Hog did not come today. The the protest is not of their award to them as a company. It's our procedures. So they did not feel it was necessary for them to come.
Okay, thank you very much. Good morning. Afternoon. Good
afternoon.
My name is Elizabeth Vandenberg and I represent Southeast Highway Guard Rail and Attenuators LLC. I'm here today with Ileana Angel, who is the estimating and contracts administrator for Southeast Highway. She actually puts together the bids, so she has the best knowledge of that process much more than I do. We're here today actually about protecting the integrity of Pasco County's procurement process. And by
that specifically we mean all of the vendors need to be on an even playing field. They need to start from the same position. And the problem that arose with this bid in particular was that no one was notified which items in the bid form were mandatory and which items were optional. So it created a situation where The other two vendors chose no bids on eight
items, and my client bid on those eight items, and because of that, bidding on those items rather than a no bid, which is a zero entry in the calculus, created Um their bid tabulation that was $60,000 higher than it would have been had they entered no bid on all of those items, like the other two competitors did. And so when it came to I'm
sorry, I'm supposed to be going through this. Um So what we're disputing today is not really the dual award. We knew going in it could be awarded to more than one vendor and we're completely fine with that. It was how the calculation was tabulated. So my client currently holds the contract for the county for Gargrail. They've held it for the past three years. Um They noticed that this year, unlike
the last bid form they submitted, there were, I believe, eight additional items added to the bottom of the bid form that were not there in previous years.
And so again, for the procurement process to be fair and equitable, all of the parties need to be on a flat field. If one party is starting higher or lower, it's not equitable. And my clients, by not entering no bids for those items that the other two vendors entered, no bids. Bids four. was actually placed at a disadvantage strangely, even though arguably their bid was more
responsive than the other two competitors who entered no bid amounts. And what resulted by virtue of them going through the form and and entering a bid for every line item was that their bid actually turned out more, whereas the parties that refused to answer on several items ended up with lesser bids.
So here's the bid form that Ileana completed and she can explain to you a little bit about these items that were added to the bottom.
The uh items uh that we decided to uh bid on are a materials only. Um We did not know that it was optional. When you bid as a prime contractor, you are supposed to bid on all items. If you do not have experience or can't do it for some reason, you will send requests for go to SOP. And that's uh what the um that
um file is for. If you send it out to SOPS, they uh can choose whether bid to bid or not bid on the items uh in the scope of work they can. So um that's that's why we uh beat on all of them. We uh wanted to um bid as a prime contractor and uh i it was not specified that it was optional.
So you'll see as comparing these three vendors, Grading and Bush Hog Services, Southeast is there in the middle in the white column. And um I think it's C Slater C. Slater construction ink is in the rightmost blue column. And you'll see that um Graden and Bushhog and C. Slater did not enter bids for those last eight items, whereas my client, Southeast Highway, believing
that they had to or their form wouldn't be accepted, um bid In particular on item 38, $60,000. So all things being created equal, because the other two vendors entered no bids for those items. My client's bid for that particular item, which is handrail, should have been zeroed out or not counted. Because what resulted was in the bid tabulations,
my client's bid came out $60,000 higher than it would have been had they entered no bid. So while we agree and acknowledge that the bid instructions did say that you could enter no bid on items, it was never specified which items those were. And the county administrator has taken the position in his response to us that the form wouldn't have been accepted had
We failed to bid on required items, but that would mean a scenario where trial and error, you leave some items blank, it's not accepted, you add them back in, it is accepted, but then you've submitted something that you don't necessarily feel is your full balanced bid. So there needed to be clearer instructions. There needed to be items earmarked mandatory versus optional. And my client shouldn't have been penalized by $60,000
for bidding on something that did not have to be bid on at all.
So again, this was a um End result. that my client ended up with an unbalanced bid by including the handrail when nobody else did. It was a game of chance, picking and choosing which items to bid on, which items not to bid on. it it amounted to a rigged game at the end of the day. And I know how much this county prides itself in integrity. And in this instance, the integrity of the process was undermined by the fact that the instructions were not clear.
So, in the end calculus on all those items at the bottom in which the other two vendors entered no bids, you'll see that because my client put that 60,000 in there, their total tabulation came out to 265,676.25. Without that 60,000, had they entered no bid and had a zero in that. column their bid would have been 205,676.25, making
them by far the lowest bid. We also believe, but I cannot confirm because I did not ask um the purchasing office or the administrator about this, but it appears to us that the reason it was dual awarded is because those two um First lowest bids were only four thousand four hundred and twenty-seven dollars different. And so here it certainly could make logical sense to dual award, but if you
Do correct math and not count that $60,000 that my client bid on when its two competitors didn't, their bid would have been $205,000, which would have amounted to savings to the county. And when you're having to answer to taxpayers about where the money's going, I'm sure you would like to be able to represent to them, we accepted the lowest bid. And in this case, you didn't accept the lowest bid because my client's bid was artificially inflated by
this non-required item.
So these are the numbers had that item been um conveyed to the bidders that it was not required.
And clearly my clients bid would have been by far the lowest without that item had they entered a no bid like Rating Bush Hog did.
So the potential unrealized savings based upon this dual award is $57,789. That is the difference between the average of the two awardee vendors bids minus Southeast Highway's bid without handrail.
And again, you know, we're here today about maintaining the integrity of the process. Broward County recently did away with this the same or a similar bid form that included those optional items. They no longer have those items on the bid form because they realize they do not need to be on the bid form. They're not mandatory items and they're not used that much in the field.
Um Pasco County has an opportunity here to maintain the integrity of its public contracts process by either rebidding this contract or readding it up. All we're saying is that sixty thousand dollars should not have been used in the bid tabulation.
Thank you for your time. Oh that's your time. Okay. Um commissioners do you have questions?
I know sometimes we've had different things where we kept other bids in place. Picking some items, etcetera. Guide real seems a little bit simpler to me. But if the bid was $57,000 without those items. It would have been hands down one By that. uh by this company. So I I I find it a a big gap.
Well you know that we So we went with two companies this time? So they they did win. I mean that were We have two companies that are getting a contract. So that's where I'm I'm a little, you know Even if without that they still would have been they would okay, they would have been number two, but we still have two companies now.
Yes, ma'am. The intent was always to award to multiple vendors in this case because we do have an abundance of work in this area and this will allow the public works department the flexibility of having more than one vendor available to them. Each individual project will be quoted out based on the the actual items to be used on that project. So if it's a matter of cost savings, they'll look and see vendors. a bid if you add up their bid it's thirty-five thousand if you add up theirs it's thirty seven thousand all being the same we would go
to the lowest one for that quote but the prices do have to match what they submitted in their bid. So on the handrails do we do
that very often? The handrails? That part I don't know, ma'am. Right. Um so if someone bid no bid let's say you have a job. And you put it out to the contractors and someone didn't bid on a handrail. Is that what that was? A handrail?
Yes, ma'am. In this case, since they are the only one that bid on that last item that they showed there, we would automatically have to use them for that item.
Well, then you're gonna get the job that has the hand you're getting all the jobs that have the handrails. So what what's the problem?
Our our point is just that the playing field wasn't even. It wasn't an apples to apples comparison. Did you have the same instructions that they had? Correct. Everybody had the
same instructions. And those instructions
were
not a lawyer. But you had the same instructions that they had. And if you If there's a job with a handrail, you're getting the work. because they didn't bid on it. So I think you're good. Okay.
I I I would just say we've held the contract for the past three years and I don't think we've ever turned down a job or been unavailable for a job. So I don't really understand the explanation that we need two vendors for availability purposes when we've never shown you all t that we can't fulfill our needs
or your needs under the contract. Okay, well we have a county employee stepping up. Mr. Barrett Dough and then Commissioner Weightman has a question.
Yes, good morning uh Chairman Commissioners. Uh Barrett Doe, Assistant Director of Public Works Department over Operations and Technical Services. Uh it's kind of a mix and match. Um you if we have to repair a guardrail, that doesn't necessarily mean that there's a handrail associated with that. It just depends on the situation, if that helps kind of clear it up. So we use the different light items for whatever comes our way.
Jane.
We will check it out.
Needs to be fixed. They put in a board order already in. All right,
good. Uh Commissioner Weightman. Thank you, Chair. Just something notice. So two-thirds of the vendors in this procurement no bid or you bid. So obviously, I mean did you ask the question? Do we bid them all? Do we not bid them all? Um but obviously it tells me two thirds of the participants Yeah, I had an idea of what to bid and what not to bid. I don't know why South East uh chose to
fill out the line items the way that we did or y'all did but um Two of the three had a idea of of of how to fill out its price sheet.
Well we haven't really been in that situation where uh you bid as a prime contractor and you can choose when what you want to bid or
ask the question during the bid process and get an answer and an addendum.
Uh yes, but that's the thing. Uh if it was added by the county, we just assume that it was needed for us to perform.
Can you go back to the instructions? If it if it wasn't needed to um it it wasn't if it was if it wasn't needed maybe the county wouldn't have to uh just add it to the pay items. So
it says right here though, if you if you decide to bid on an item, it doesn't say you are required to bid on an item. That's why I'm getting home.
Yes, but the thing is when uh you bid as a prime you are supposed to bid on everything. Otherwise the county if uh needs to go and uh perform the uh the the job on on a in on an item that is not bid by their contractor they have to incur and um more um work and more taxpayer dollars to but um to get a company to do that. So a prime contractor it's supposed to cover all uh as
opposed to just what is convenient for them.
Madam Chairman, if I could ask the board to finish your questions of the protester, then ask any questions of staff.
That's it for me. Any other questions from anybody? Okay, um thank you very much, Steph.
Yes, ma'am. We have included on the first page of our page of our specification documents that we reserve the right to award the lowest responsible responsible vendor by line item and then we also put directly below that that we have the intent to award to m multiple vendors. So that's very clear in our documents.
Okay, I'm looking to my board for direction.
Based on that information, I'll uphold uh we support the staff's recommendation. Um
I'll second it.
You'll up uphold the administrator's determination.
Okay.