A travel agency passed over for a state contract called the state of Wisconsin's procurement practices into question Tuesday, alleging the state Department of Administration unfairly gave another company the contract.
Though the winner of contract, Adelman Travel, was decided more than two months ago, Omega World Travel is now accusing the state of wrongly favoring Adelman and requesting an investigation into the award.
"New information from the [procurement] committee indicated that Omega was the clear contract winner," Omega World Travel Midwest Vice President Diane Bozicevich said. "We have information which indicates that that conclusion was put aside and the process manipulated to justify an alternative outcome."
The Adelman contract was first brought into question when it was revealed two top Adelman officials each made donations of $10,000 to Gov. Jim Doyle's campaign fund around the time of the bidding process.
Such allegations were then quelled when subsequent research into campaign contributions found an Adelman executive also made donations to former Gov. Tommy Thompson during his terms as governor when the travel agency was awarded a state contract in the past.
It was not until Omega received letters from several committee members stating they felt Omega was the better candidate that the company felt there was any wrongdoing. Before receiving those letters, Bozicevich said the Adelman award was deemed "business as usual" by Omega officials.
"We had no reason at that point in time to question what was going on, but information was withheld from us at that time," Bozicevich said.
Omega officials were initially told the company was tied with Adelman, when, in actuality, it had scored 21 points higher on a 1,200-point scale than Adelman.
However, Wisconsin DOA Public Information Specialist Scott Larrivee refuted several points made in a press release by Omega criticizing the state, including a statement which said the difference between the Adelman bid and the Omega bid was $8,000 per year. According to Larrivee, the decision to contract to Adelman over Omega is slated to save the state $27,000 annually.
Despite this, Bozicevich said because Omega was found to be the best contender for the bid in the written and oral scoring by the committee as part of the process, there should not have been request for a "best and final offer" consideration.
"There were strong recommendations [from the committee] that there was no need for a 'best and final' and that the award go to Omega," Bozicevich said. "Why were their recommendations overruled by the DOA?"
Larrivee contested that assertion, though, stating the "best and final offer" practice is "incredibly common."
"At the state level, it is used 60 to 70 percent of the time, where you really drill down and get extra savings for taxpayers," Larrivee said, adding the practice is used even more frequently in the private sector.
Though Bozicevich said the procurement committee favored Omega in the bidding process, Larrivee said the part of the process in which the committee was involved is only part of the protocol used to select the winner of the bid.
"They are muddying this up in that, first of all, it's not a show of hands; it's an overall point basis which factors in price," Larrivee said, adding it was not the committee's job to score by pricing.
Omega did score higher than Adelman in some portions of the bidding process, Larrivee said, but the "best and final offer" and pricing sections of the process are critically important aspects of procuring state contracts.
In the end, the officials overseeing the bidding found Adelman to be the best choice for the state, Larrivee said, adding overall, the contract procurement was conducted by the book.
"This is a standard request-for-proposal process that we follow all of the time that was conducted by state civil servants in full compliance with the process," Larrivee said. "There is no need to re-bid the contract."
