Criticized for considering a copy machine contract with Xerox that would cost a half million dollars more than a competitor’s bid, East Penn School District now has rejected all bids and is starting over.
The district will advertise a new request for proposals this week for “multi-function and copy machines” and hopes to make a decision at its next regular meeting on Dec. 8.
On Monday night, the nine-member school board unanimously voted to reject all proposals it had received and issue another request for proposals.
East Penn Superintendent Michael Schilder said he wants the process to be clean and clear.
Copy machines are not the most glamorous topic in the world, acknowledged Schilder, but are very important to the operation of the school district.
He added they are particularly important for classroom instruction, saying: “The last thing we want is teachers worried about: ‘Is the copy machine going to work? Is the copy machine going to be serviced? How long is it going to be out of commission?’
“We want teachers being assured the materials they need are there when they need them.”
At its Oct. 27 meeting, the school board tabled action on approving a five-year, $1.55-million contract with Xerox Corp. on the recommendation of its solicitor, Atty. Marc Fisher.
On Monday, again acting on Fisher’s advice, the board withdrew a motion to award the contract to Xerox, then voted to reject all proposals that had been received for the contract.
“The decision to reject all proposals is essentially our desire to start over,” explained Schilder.
“We want to clarify the language and the specifications. We want to be crystal clear on what the district needs and what it doesn’t need when it comes to copiers.”
The superintendent said East Penn also wants to remove any miscommunication or controversy from that RFP (request for proposals) process.
He said the administration’s recommendation to the school board to hire a vendor will be based partly, but not entirely, on cost.
Other factors will be the quality of the product and service and whether the potential vendors meet the needs of the school district.
Schilder said much information about the quality of the product and service is gleaned through reference checks — “you talk to people who have used that company and used that product” — as well as the district’s own experience with different types of machines and different vendors.
Xerox is the district’s current copy machine vendor.
Board president Alan Earnshaw said any of six vendors can submit new proposals to win the five-year copy machine contract, as could vendors who did not submit proposals last time. “Or one of the people who bid on it before could choose not to bid again if they wish.”
“It’s fairly common in my experience to have unhappy rejected vendors who still may have a protest,” said East Penn’s superintendent.
“That’s to be expected a lot of times. Nothing we do could completely guarantee that wouldn’t happen.”
Competing bidder’s complaint
On Oct. 27, Atty. Michael Prokup, who represented Fraser Advanced Information Systems, told the school board Fraser offered the lowest qualified proposal among six companies hoping to win the office equipment contract.
That bid was more than $500,000 lower than the contract the district planned to award to Xerox that night.
Prokup asked the board to table awarding a contract.
Fraser’s lawyer also said East Penn wants a specific piece of equipment that can bind a 125-page booklet, which is only made by Xerox.
He questioned why the district put out a request for proposals so specific that only one company —Xerox — could win that contract.
Prokup also said East Penn was about to sign a contract with Fraser, based partly upon a “stellar” recommendation from Souderton Area School District.
But he said East Penn officials changed their minds after learning about a piece of Canon equipment at Allentown School District that did not perform as well as people in that district would have liked. That same piece of equipment was part of the Fraser proposal.
The lawyer said Fraser believes someone from Xerox suggested that East Penn go to Allentown School District to learn about its problems with that machine.
Resident objects
At the beginning of Monday’s board meeting, Atty. E. Keller Kline also objected to awarding the contract to Xerox.
Kline said he was addressing the board as a district taxpayer.
He noted Fraser was the lower bidder and would save the school district a half million dollars “for essentially the same equipment.”
He said Fraser would cost the district about $17,000 a month, adding Xerox, the current vendor, now gets about $38,700 a month.
“To continue dealing with Xerox at a substantial cost to the school district is a mistake,” said Kline.
He recommended the board take Solicitor Fisher’s advice and remove the RFP from consideration.
New district personnel
Also during the meeting, the school board voted to hire Jessica Kornhausl as the school district’s new human resources manager and Erin M. Murphy as the new assistant principal at Eyer Middle School.
Both women attended the meeting and were congratulated and welcomed by members of the school board and administration after the vote.
Kornhausl, who will be paid $78,500 a year, will start Dec. 8. She currently is assistant director of employee services at East Stroudsburg University.
Murphy, who will be paid $80,000 a year, will start Nov. 24. She currently is a K-12 technology integration specialist in the district.
Another school bus needed?
Schilder reported school bus transportation problems East Penn was having from the start of this school year with STA of Pennsylvania, its transportation company, now are happening rarely, which is what the district expects from a large-scale transportation operation.
He said the district is working with STA on two bus routes that still are too long.
One bus route serving Emmaus High School is close to an hour long and another serving a charter school “is running well over an hour.”
Schilder said the district is doing everything it can to solve both problems without adding an additional bus, which will create an additional expense. But if there’s no other solution, another bus will be added.
“What I’ve learned is that, sometimes when I wait, it forces people to be creative,” he said.
“It’s an easy solution to add buses. I could have added four or five buses in the beginning of the year and we really didn’t need to do that. That’s what I’m holding out for.”
He added: “At the next board meeting, I may be coming back and saying ‘we had to add a mini-bus’. That would solve the problem. ” But he also doesn’t want to be in a situation where “I’m kicking myself because I added that bus.”
After the meeting, Schilder said having STA adding a route with a full-size bus would cost East Penn an additional $40,000 a year. “A mini-bus might be slightly less than that.” But he’s not yet sure if the driving times can be reduced by just adding a mini-bus.
Adding another bus does not require school board approval, “but my practice has always been to make sure the board is fully aware of an expenditure like that.”
How many students?
The superintendent reported that total enrollment in the school district is 8,029 students as of Nov. 1.
He said that’s 21 more students than on Oct. 1.
He indicated enrollment has held steady for the last several years, noting it was 8,019 on June 1, 2011.
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