$1 million Richmond police car deal broke rules
TIMES-DISPATCH
“It angers me that that kind of behavior went on,“ Richmond City Councilman Charles Samuels said of the police car deal reported by the city auditor.
• RELATED STORY: Richmond City Council member blasts police car deal
• AUDITOR'S REPORT: Police cars bought without competitive bids
Richmond officials violated procurement rules when the city bought 40 police cars for nearly $1 million in 2007 without allowing vendors to compete for the business, according to a city auditor's investigation.
The procurement services department wrongly treated the purchase as though only one vendor could provide the Crown Victoria vehicles when numerous Ford dealers across the city and nation could have, City Auditor Umesh Dalal wrote in a report Tuesday to Mayor Dwight C. Jones and other officials.
Eric R. Mens, who authorized the purchase of the vehicles, gave notice June 30 that he would resign effective Aug. 30, city spokesman Michael Wallace said yesterday. Mens has been the director of procurement services since January 2007.
His resignation was not requested by the administration, and so far, no disciplinary action has been taken as a result of the investigation, Wallace said.
"The administration just received this report today, and it's under review by senior staff," Wallace said yesterday.
Mens could not be reached for comment and is scheduled to be out of the office until Monday, according to an automated response to an e-mail message.
Richmond paid $993,520 -- an average of$24,838 per vehicle -- to an unnamed vendor for the police vehicles, according to the auditor's report.
State officials said the city and other localities can piggyback on the state's contract for police vehicles, but it was unclear what savings, if any, could have been realized.
In 2007, Virginia State Police paid a base price of $20,626 for Crown Victoria cruisers, spokeswoman Corinne Geller said. It could not be determined whether the vehicles were equipped similarly to the vehicles purchased by the city.
City code requires all public contracts with private vendors to be awarded after competitive sealed bidding or negotiation.
Notices inviting bids or requesting proposals are supposed to be posted publicly for at least 10 days if the contract exceeds $50,000. But that did not happen when the city bought the police vehicles, according to the auditor's report.
Exceptions to procurement rules can be made if officials determine after a "good-faith review" that only one source or vendor is practically available.
The auditor's office said a contract specialist with procurement services had questioned the sole-source designation for the police-car purchase but was directed by the deputy director to treat the purchase that way.
The investigation also found that the deputy director had instructed the contract specialist to send faxes to three Ford dealerships requesting bids for the vehicles. The faxes went out at 3:30 p.m. on Nov. 7, 2007, and they required responses 17½ hours later, at 9 a.m. Nov. 8, 2007 -- well short of requirements, according to the report.
Before the purchase, the department had contacted Ford Motor Co. about buying the vehicles directly, according to the report. However, the deputy director told an investigator that he was advised to contact local dealerships to get the vehicles, according to the report.
"The investigator questioned the deputy director about the manner in which the three vendors were contacted and why the purchase was treated as a sole-source purchase," Dalal wrote. "The deputy director could not explain their rationale for procuring the vehicles as a sole source."
The report added that the deputy director stated that "the original contract awarded to the vendor was canceled and a new invitation for bid was initiated," and that the contract was awarded based on the new bids.
"However, the deputy director could not substantiate his claim with any evidence," the report said. "Subsequent inquiries with other procurement personnel revealed that the department did not solicit any other invitation for bids for this purchase."
The report recommends disciplinary action and was copied to City Council members, as well as Commonwealth's Attorney Michael N. Herring. Herring was unable to say late yesterday whether his office planned to investigate.
Contact Will Jones at (804) 649-6911 or
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Reader Reactions
Thanks L. Douglas Wilder. You really are a gem. Look at all the wonderful things you’ve did for our city… wait, never mind, I can’t even see past the amount of monetary waste you racked up.
Where I come from, we call that cronyism. And I come from a dirty corrupt, filthy city run by a dirty, corrupt, filthy Democrat machine.
The Times Dispatch needs to stay on top of who this “un-named” vendor is.
One won’t have to dig too deep.
One would think the state would be interested in this as well. But look who is runs our state.
There is a “modest” proposal (“misguided” is a more appropriate description) that would allow the Mayor to hire/fire the City Attorney and the City Auditor. Let’s pause for a moment—would this morning’s revelation see the light of day if the present administration were still in office calling the shots on such activity?
What is not clear in this article is why this flouting of the City Code occurred or why the procurement director has now resigned. The report states that a City Hall contract specialist questioned the sole-source designation for the purchase but was directed to treat the purchase erroneously as a sole source transaction—in apparent violation of City Code.
What was missing in the “culture” at City Hall that allowed management to flout its own rules? Would this event ever come to light if the City Auditor were no longer independent of the Mayor’s influence? What if the City Auditor were directed not to report the matter because the Mayor thought his administration would be embarrassed by the finding and that such embarrassment would not be “in the best interest of the pubic?“ Would the City Auditor be fired for failing to carry out such an executive directive?
These are not hypothetical questions to be ignored. Here’s an instance of experienced procurement professionals at City Hall who work directly for the administration and did not comply outside of the rules.
We need our City Attorney and our City Auditor to be disciplined professionals who are absolutely free from the undue influence that would be introduced if the Mayor were to be allowed to hire/fire such watchdogs. In a nutshell, that is the fatal flaw of the pending proposal.
We have some strong checks and balances provided by these two watchdog departments. These strong checks are allowed to operate freely since they are separated from the executive branch of City government (i.e., the Mayor’s Office). Why in heaven’s name would we inhibit their ability to act by making them report to the Mayor? To suggest such an undertaking is madness or perhaps an underhanded scheme to return to a time when the public largesse could be plundered with impunity and without detection.
No taxpayer dollars should ever go to an ‘un-named’ vendor. And, they’re auditing from 2 years ago? Why isn’t someone auditing semiannually or at least annually? The level of corruption it takes to allow an expense for vehicles to ‘un-named’ vendors is horrendous. Just proves how lax the government is with our money.
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