Printing plan afoul of rules: Missourian negotiated without bids.
September 29, 2006
Printing plan afoul of rules: Missourian negotiated without bids.. Check it out:(Columbia Daily Tribune (Columbia, MO) (KRT) Via Thomson Dialog NewsEdge) Sep. 28--Officials at the University of Missouri-Columbia journalism school planned to contract with an area newspaper company to print its morning newspaper without a public bid process and later rigged a request for bids to favor the same vendor.
Public documents, including e-mail exchanges between Columbia Missourian General Manager Dan Potter and employees with the Jefferson City News Tribune, confirm the Missourian was poised to sign a contract in early August with the capital-city newspaper to print the journalism school's six-days-a-week lab paper. The Missourian is part of the MU School of Journalism but is published by the independent Missourian Publishing Association Inc.
As officials sought final approval to execute the contract, Vice-Chancellor Jackie Jones flagged the plan and ordered the school to work with the MU procurement office to develop a bid procedure.
Late last month, the school announced it would solicit bids for an outside contractor to print the paper to avoid the cost of replacing a "decades-old press" and to introduce more color to the newspaper pages.
An Aug. 28 request for proposals, or RFP, outlined requirements that favored the News Tribune, including certain print specifications and an unusual stipulation that the printer would help launch a regional advertising network to compete in Cole, Osage, Boone and other counties in the combined circulation areas of both newspapers.
The Missourian's RFP apparently went to four newspaper printing plants within a 50-mile radius of Columbia, including the Columbia Daily Tribune. After studying the RFP, Tribune Associate Publisher Vicki Russell sent the university procurement office a five-page letter that questioned the legality of MU's publicly funded joint advertising venture with a private enterprise and other aspects of the request.
Messages exchanged from May to August by employees at the Missourian and the News Tribune document a business relationship that appeared headed toward marriage weeks before a request for bids was announced. The negotiations reached a point at which start dates were set and data files were exchanged.
Potter on June 12 wrote to Mike Vivion of the News Tribune, "I'm kind of thinking of this timetable: We'd move our printing by Aug. 1 and no later than Sept. 1 to your plant. I'll stay in touch. I'm excited about all the synergies we can create in advertising."
A few days later, Potter told Vivion he would soon meet with MU Dean of Journalism Dean Mills for final approval.
"I see no problem in getting his agreement on this because I already outlined the overall plan and got his agreement. I just need to give him the details," Potter wrote.
Mills did not respond to a request for a telephone interview but answered written questions submitted to the MU News Bureau. He said in an e-mail that Missourian officials had done nothing wrong and that the journalism school had no relationship with the News Tribune before the RFP was issued.
Among the key components of the request for bids a point that spurred questions by the Tribune was the requirement for the regional advertising alliance. In response to Russell's questioning, MU buyer Joetta Gross said the Missourian requested the requirement because it would "greatly broaden their overall business strategy."
Thirty percent of the bid score would be based on the advertising alliance requirement, and 50 percent would reflect the best printing price.
State law says that for contracts of more than $25,000, state agencies and institutions must advertise for bids in at least two daily newspapers and select the "lowest and best bidder." The successful bid for the Missourian contract likely would far exceed that threshold.
Purchasing guidelines on the university procurement Web site mirror state law and include policies that give suppliers "equal consideration" and a requirement that "a sufficient number of vendors should be contacted/solicited to ensure fair and open competition in the procurement process."
MU scuttled the RFP on Sept. 13, five days before the bid deadline, with a message posted on its procurement Web site that said, "additional information will be provided in a separate addendum to follow."
MU Chief Procurement Officer Bill Cooper said Missourian employees apparently "were unaware of the principles of procurement that would govern this type of a buy." Cooper said he did not read the RFP before it was issued because the contract fell below a review limit of $1 million.
After the RFP was issued, vendor feedback made it clear that it was flawed and needed amending to create an "equal competitive situation," Cooper said.
"It's not unusual to amend if the supplier community says, Hey, you've kind of missed the boat on this one,' " he said. "We are most confident that this new solicitation will accomplish what we need to do."
An amended RFP will be issued in "a day or two," Cooper said.
Tribune Associate Publisher Russell said she's "grateful the university chose to re-issue the RFP," but wondered if the process had already been compromised.
"I'm not sure how the university will level the playing field for all vendors," she said. "Managers at the Missourian and the Jefferson City newspaper obviously worked out conditions of the original RFP to favor Jeff City. They agreed to pricing, deadlines and various technical details weeks before the first RFP went out."
Copyright (c) 2006, Columbia Daily Tribune, Mo.
Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Business News.
For reprints, email [email protected], call 800-374-7985 or 847-635-6550, send a fax to 847-635-6968, or write to The Permissions Group Inc., 1247 Milwaukee Ave., Suite 303, Glenview, IL 60025, USA.
Related Tags: columbia daily, daily tribune, journalism school, Missourian, missourian, Tribune
Cosmos
Del.icio.us
Slashdot
Digg
BoingBoing
Furl
Spurl
Listed below are links to sites that reference Printing plan afoul of rules: Missourian negotiated without bids.:
Trackback Pings
TrackBack URL for Printing plan afoul of rules: Missourian negotiated without bids.:
http://blog.tmcnet.com/cgi-bin/mt3/mt-tb.fcgi/28602Previous blog: HP Offers New Entertainment Products in Time for Holiday Season
VoIP for Enterprise Home PageComments to Printing plan afoul of rules: Missourian negotiated without bids.
