More City contracts to Alabama companies
I’m on a bit of a roll here. I just so happen to be in a bad mood.
More and more City contracts, principally for road and construction projects, is being awarded to firms from elsewhere in Florida or from Alabama. In addition to the example I cited in an earlier post, there is an agenda item for Enterprise Operations on Monday to award a sidewalks contract to Starfish, Inc. of Brewton, Alabama. Surely we have a business in the City, or at least the County, who can lay sidewalks. Surely it wouldn’t cost that much more. Instead of recycling our tax dollars into our community though, we sent them to outside companies. We help create jobs elsewhere.
Now, City Council has pretty much zero say in who to award City contracts do. They’re required to award them to the “lowest and best responsible bidder”. So the question should be why. What law requires us to send our taxpayer dollars to other communities, and how can we bring it up for discussion?
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Professor Cosson – Is there a Florida Supreme Court decision that’s on point here?
Maybe there’s an opening in the decision allowing a city government to award a contract to a local (city) company that is not the lowest bidder if the net economic impact to the city is greater?
It must be some sort of “public good” to increase employment of city residents and when people work they make money and theyspend money and the city gets more taxes in return.
Derek, I see what you’re saying, but what you’re suggesting is an invitation for corruption. There’s not a contractor in this town that doesn’t have some connection, or hasn’t made campaign contributions, to many local politicians. Now imagine if one of those contractors got awarded a government contract despite being much more expensive than an outside firm.
Local companies have a lot of advantages, just by virtue of being local, that should enable them to bid lower than outside companies. They have a local workforce, they have connections with local suppliers, and they don’t have to transport their equipment. The fact that Pensacola companies can’t compete in their own city reflects poorly on them. (Or maybe the Brewton company you mentioned is just underbidding everyone to get the business, in which case they won’t be around for long.) But the ‘lowest responsible bid’ rule is in my mind a vital bulwark against full-blown good ol’ boy corruption.