School district takes a different approach to awarding a bid

The Hamtramck Public School District will be repairing and upgrading its buildings in the year to come. The Hamtramck High School Community Center will soon receive needed repairs. File photo

By Charles Sercombe
For years, Hamtramck Public School officials have complained about the condition of the district’s community center on Charest St.
Although the building was built in the 1980s, there were calls for repairs beginning in the 1990s.
And though it was agreed that repairs were necessary, there was one major obstacle: the absence of money to make those repairs, as well as some to the district’s much older school buildings.
Last year, the district’s wishes finally came true: The federal government, through a pandemic funding program, awarded the district with about $35 million to make needed repairs to its buildings.
That funding was at the center of the district’s annual report to the community last July.
“Our prayers were answered,” Superintendent Jaleelah Ahmed said at the time.
The funding also helped heal wounds leftover after voters rejected a district millage proposal to do the work needed. That millage proposal would have raised about the same amount of money – but voters basically said the district was asking for too much.
Flash forward to the present, and the district is moving ahead with taking care of the community center, which is adjacent to the high school.
Both high school sports and public recreation programs are hosted there.
A bid was recently awarded to make a number of exterior repairs, but in a rare, although not totally unheard-of move, neither of the two lowest bidders got the job.
Instead, upon the recommendation of the city’s consultant on the job, Partners in Architecture, located in Mt. Clemens, the highest bidder, Frank Rewold & Sons, was awarded the job.
The difference between the highest bid and the lowest was about $200,000. The Review received copies of the bids through a a Freedom of Information Act request.
The Review also obtained a letter to the district by Pam Elderkin, the Project Manager with Partners, through a Freedom of Information Act request, and in it she explained the reason for rejecting the lowest bidder, Forte Contracting, Inc.
She said the company “would not be able to perform the work with the bid amount submitted.”
A spokesman for the company declined to comment, but it was noted that the company has performed work for the district in the past.
Its bid was $579,700, with $17,000 included if additional work is needed.
The next lowest bidder, Spartan Construction Group, Inc., was about $20,000 less than Rewold. It, too, was rejected by Partners.
The president of Spartan, Matthew Spisak, said he was “shocked” at the decision.
“We met all the qualifications,” he said. “We have plenty of experience.”
Spartan’s bid was for $759,000, with $38,000 set aside for additional work if needed.
Rewold’s winning bid was $779,000 with $28,000 for additional work.
So with two contractors so close, why did Elderkin recommend Rewold?
“Based on the interview and our review of Frank Rewold & Sons’ bid, it appears that they have submitted a complete bid proposal, conveyed a clear understanding of the scope of the project, and they can complete the project within the specified time schedule,” Elderkin said.
She added:
“We have worked with them on previous projects in our office, and found them to do a very favorable job, and they have worked on multi-million-dollar projects within the same scope of work, and we feel this experience will be essential in this project.”
Elderkin did not return a call for comment by the time The Review went to press on Thursday.
The Review also reached out to Interim Superintendent Nabil Nagi and to all seven school boardmembers for comment on the contract, but they did not return emails.
In general, government bodies are held to a standard of accepting the “lowest responsive and responsible bidder.”
That’s how a recent bid award played out, at Tuesday’s city council meeting, for a contract to install speed humps at 18 locations throughout the city.
There were six bids to consider, and the winner was indeed the lowest bidder.
Those bids ranged from the lowest at $32,266 to the highest, at $111,980.
That work will be split 50-50 with the school district, because the speed humps will be placed near the district’s schools and also near Pulaski Park, which the district owns.
(The total cost of the project will be $42,492, because of a $7,000 charge for engineering oversight.)
Posted March 25, 2022