Guest Post: The price of a no-bid contract

The Parents' Coalition has received the following question:  "Why does Montgomery County like paying almost $2 more [57% more] per square foot for artificial turf?"

The person asking the question references this article:

Turf Bids Come In
June 16, 2011 by Josh Morgan 

Bids were received for the first portion of the turf field project at Cheshire High School and fall in line with what officials state they had expected.
The project continues to move forward and within the next 30 days the absolute final costs should be known. Bids opened on June 8 were for "the rug" or the actual turf itself. The low bid was for $312,025 by Field Turf. A total of three companies responded to the Request For Proposal, and the bids ranged from $312,025 to $376,669...

and states that  "Fieldturf was low bid at $312,000 for 89,150 sqft which works out to $3.50 psf.

Why does Montgomery County like paying almost $2 MORE psf ($200,000!) for same thing?"