Melissa Bailey Photo
Sloan: “I can beat anybody.”
After selecting Xerox from among four bidders on a new municipal printing contract, the city changed the terms of the deal — drawing the ire of rival copy companies who claim they were duped.
That state of affairs came to light in a joint meeting of the Board of Aldermen’s Finance and Education Committees last week, at which lawmakers voted to recommend a new printing services deal with Xerox. The contract is now headed to the full board for final approval. Click here for background on the deal.
Aldermen Justin Elicker and Migdalia Castro cast votes against recommending contract approval at the meeting. Elicker said he was swayed by testimony from representatives of several area printing companies, who complained that the city had put out a request for bids on a one-year contract with four possible one-year renewals, then given Xerox a five-year contract.
City spokesman Adam Joseph said the city did nothing wrong. If companies wanted to win the contract, they should have submitted lower bids, he said. He touted projections that a deal with Xerox would save the city about $300,000 each year for five years.
Four companies responded to the city’s request for proposals (RFP). IKON, the company that has long held the printing management contract with the city, submitted the two highest bids, with monthly rates of $73,664.08 or $103,549.08. Xerox’s winning bid came in at $68,878.65 per month, a little over $1,000 cheaper than the next lowest bid.
Read the RFP here. Read the bids here.
On Sept. 14, IKON vice-president Anthony Maturo wrote a letter of complaint about the bidding process to city Corporation Counsel Victor Bolden.
“It has come to our attention that this RFP is being presented to the Board of Aldermen for approval as a five year contract,” Maturo wrote. “This is a material and significant change to the terms.”
Had IKON known it was competing for a five-year contract, the company would have submitted a different bid, Maturo wrote. He called for the city to reopen the bidding process.
In a response letter two days later, city Purchasing Agent Mike Fumiatti wrote that all the submitted bids were based on the same terms. “No responder presented pricing that was based on a single five year term,” he wrote. “Further, the City intends to contract with the winning responder by utilizing a Pricing Schedule identical to the one presented in their RFP response.”
Spokesman Joseph presented a similar argument when asked about the matter. He acknowledged that Bolden had decided to alter the deal. “This is a change after review by corporation counsel,” he said. “It makes more sense to do it as a five-year deal.”
“Basically it’s a five-year deal regardless,” Joseph said of the RFP’s one-year/four-years-renewable structure
Richard Sloan, a marketing agent for IKON Office Solutions, said he could save the city more money if his company is allowed to bid for a full five-year contract.
“I can beat anybody’s quote,” he said.
IKON has held the city’s copying contract for the past 20 years. Sloan explained that he can get much better prices from suppliers for a five-year contract than he could with only a one-year guarantee.
Joseph said the bidding process was fair: “Everybody that downloaded the RFP or submitted a bid looked at the same RFP.”
The fact that other companies are now complaining is “an indication that those vendors could have submitted better proposals,” Joseph said.
“We’re here to protect the taxpayers and make sure their money is spent wisely,” Joseph said. “At the end of the day, we’re going to get a better quality service at a lower price” with the Xerox deal.
Elicker said that he agrees with the spirit of the Xerox deal, in that it would save money and reduce waste.
“Basically everyone on the committee felt that the city’s approach to upgrading the copying and printing system is a great idea,” said Alderman Elicker of the Finance-Education Committee. The new plan will have “more oversight” of paper use and will reduce costs and conserve resources, Elicker said.
“The joint committee felt it was a great idea to renegotiate the contract,” Elicker said. “The issue was how it was renegotiated.”
Elicker said it was “unfair” that the city put out an RFP for a one-year renewable contract and then changed it to a five-year deal after selecting a winning bid.
Elicker said he voted against recommending the deal for two reasons. “One is that it’s important that the city puts out RFPs and comes up with contractual agreements that are fair to different companies.” The other reason: “We might have gotten a better deal,” Elicker said.
Elicker said he thinks the RFP should be put out again, this time as a five-year deal. He said he will likely vote against the deal if it’s not changed back to a one-year renewable contract before coming before the full board.
He said shorter contracts may be better anyway, since technology is changing so fast. “Maybe in three years we’re all using Kindles and iPads” and thus need fewer copies.
Melissa Bailey helped report this story.
Nothing new. I'm pretty sure that the city changed the terms of the Shartenberg RFP after the proposals were issued by developers and removed an egregious parking obligation (providing parking to Chase tower)....but only for Becker.