No-Bid Contract Games
UPDATE: In the course of a conversation with Jill Rohrer after the meeting I discoverd there was another VMI purchase that took place last week. I will be FOIA’ing the details today. This is a very interesting purchase because of the following timeline:
Oct 6 – I spoke with Envirox
Oct 8 – Envirox representatives I believe had talked to Mr. Wasserman and refused to discuss the issue further with me.
Oct 12 – New Invoice from VMI Supply
Below are my remarks to the BOE given tonight during public comments. I’ll try to get the notes up tomorrow night.
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My name is Lennie Jarratt. I have come before you tonight to discuss purchases made by the District that exceeded the State statutes requiring bids. This limit is $10,000 as I’m sure you are aware. I believe this statute can be interpreted 2 ways. The first interpretation is that a single purchase must not exceed the $10,000 limit before bidding must be done. The second interpretation is that purchases made from the same source cannot exceed $10,000 in a school year budget. I believe this is the most accurate interpretation. If it is not, there would be many loopholes and ways to make sure purchases never exceeded the limit. For example, you could conceivably bill $9,999 each month for a total of $119,988 without a contract using the first interpretation. That seems to violate the spirit of the law’s intention. What I have discovered concerns purchases of cleaning supplies made from Vacuum Mart, Inc. and VMI Supply. It turns out they are the same company located at 134 Peterson Rd in Libertyville. The name of the company was changed on the invoices starting in March of this year. Without seeing the invoices you may not realize this was the same company. Why was the name changed? I have a lot of information about the purchase totals. You can follow along on your copies to make it easier.
I will now breakdown the 2004/05 purchases further since they exceeded the $10,000 limit:
I first decided to look into pricing to see if Mr. Wasserman had tried to help the District by selling the products at a reduced rate. I started with the most frequently purchased item. This product, Envirox H2Orange2 Concentrate 117, was 73% of the total dollar amount purchased. I provided Ellen a copy of the invoices to make the verification of this easier and a summary of the purchases to each of you. Vacuum Mart charged the District $32.625 per gallon regardless if the purchase was 4 gallons or 168 gallons. What I discovered was that the District was being charged retail for these purchases. How do I know Vacuum Mart charged the District retail? First, I did some Internet searches and discovered several sites selling the Envirox H2Orange2 product. In a few minutes I found the same product at the retail price of $32.37 per gallon. I included the webpage on which I found this price. I soon found out this product could also be purchased in 5 gallon and 55 gallon drums. I decided to make a few phone inquiries since the District could have purchased this in bulk quantities. I called KSS Enterprises in Michigan and spoke to a salesman. He quoted me just over $33 per gallon if I walked in off the street. I then told him what the District was being charged and the quantities purchased. He immediately told me the District could buy the product much cheaper. He talked to his district manager about getting me a price, but was unable to do so because of the territorial restrictions placed on them by Envirox. I contacted Envirox at this point. They passed me to a Regional Representative, Eric Lambert, who could direct me to a reseller. He gave me the name George Carbray (sp?). I have provided their names and contact information for you in the packets I handed out. When I spoke with George I informed him I was a parent in the District who was researching prices for the Envirox products and that I would be giving this information to the school board; which I am doing tonight. I asked him for a price and he told me $120 and change per case. This is approximately $30 per gallon. I told him what Vacuum Mart had been charging the District per gallon and the quantities purchased. He also told me we could buy it much cheaper and in 55 gallon drums. He told me RW Home Products handled the sales in the Grayslake area. I discovered that Robert Wasserman was the President of this company and have included the Illinois Corporation File Detail Report for verification. I also attached the Who Is document regarding the company website. I contacted George again and asked for a different reseller because RW Home Products was the same as Vacuum Mart. He said he would call me the next day with the contact information. George did not call the next day, so I called him the following day asking for the information. He said to me, “You are not with the School District are you?” Comments11 Responses to “No-Bid Contract Games”TrackbacksCheck out what others are saying about this post...
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What makes me mad is that this is from one of the people that supported the referendum in 2005 because the district didn’t have enough money to put back the programs in d46. You know the slogan”
Lennie,
I just love your site. I wish more parents were as involved as you in their school districts. My guess is millions of dollars could be saved across the state if parents were more involved in the happenings of their school districts. Keep up the great work.
Lennie, this was amazingly presented – in a non-confrontational way – just the facts. Thank you for being involved enough to uncover something like this that no parent should have had to search and hunt for. I am interested in knowing how this will be addressed both my Mr Wasserman and by the school board – because it appears that most certainly more than one person within the district had knowledge of this. Keep up the great work – and again – thank you for caring about the kids more than anything else.
Thanks. Yes, it will be interesting to see what the Board does. I would love to hear an explanation from Mr. Wasserman as well if he is willing.
What are the chances of you doing the same great investigative work in Winthrop Harbor?
Bravo Lennie,
Where is Carl? I’d love to get his take on this insider deal. How many tiny little Enrons like this does it take to add up to a Giant ENRON. Illinois has 886 districts, with similar abuse of funds in every one.
No competition, little oversight, too few Lennies digging in their dirt pile.
In reply to Lisa & Cathy & others, if we did away with the concept of a district, and just started funding Children instead, these community ripping issues wouldn’t arise.
I’ve developed a way out of this mess, and I’d love all your help in fine tuning and promoting it. It’s at http://www.extremewisdom.com/essays . Feedback welcome.
Oh Lennie it can’t be. According to Carl the only thing wrong with our district is a couple of PTO flies that went out at the tax payers expense. I’m thinking Carl has no clue whats going on or he’s one of the abusers!!!! Keep looking Lennie I’m sure there’s more!!!!
http://www.d46.info/forum/viewthread.php?forum_id=5&thread_id=39
Oh, Joanne it can’t be. According to Lennie, he’s the expert on everything!
How’s that foot taste today, Lennie?
I would be very interested in finding out which school districts exactly use H2Orange? I am located in California and am trying to implement a safer cleaning schedule in my daughter’s school. I would be so grateful for any information on what schools across the nation have implemented alternative cleaning materials; what they are using and how/why it was implemented?