MC Inspector General Gets It Wrong. Competitive Bids Do Lower Cost.

Here's what the Montgomery County Inspector General said in his Report on MCPS' no bid purchase of 4,600 Promethean Boards:

"We found no evidence to indicate that MCPS might have been able to obtain better pricing by using a different contract vehicle and conducting a secondary competition."

Too bad the IG didn't look to other Maryland public school systems.  If he had he would have found that competitive bids on interactive white board purchases do lower costs.

• St. Mary's County Public Schools was able to reduce their cost and save $33,000 through a competitive bidding process for interactive white boards.

• Cecil County Public Schools found that competitive bids lowered their per unit cost by $312 per set.  If MCPS could have saved just $312 per Promethean board set that would have saved $1,435,200 in MCPS Capital Budget funds.

  Cecil County Smart Boards Memo by Parents' Coalition of Montgomery County, Maryland

Cecil County Public Schools - Board of Education minutes:

Bids
Interactive White Boards – Award Change
During their November 10, 2008, meeting the Board accepted a bid to buy approximately 100 SMART Boards. Mr. Shaffer explained that once a bid is accepted, the scope of the purpose is reviewed with the vendor. It was identified that the vendor who was awarded the bid on November 10 misunderstood the scope of the project. ...
.... Upon the recommendation of the Superintendent, Mr. Piner made a motion that was seconded by Ms. Kammerer and the Board of Education unanimously agreed to withdraw the award for the SMART Technologies Interactive White Boards from Advanced Computer Concepts and change the award to AVI-SPL of Lanham, Maryland for a unit cost of $1,703 and in the total amount of $170,300. (Mr. Pearson voted in the affirmative.)
...
Respectfully Submitted,
Henry A. Shaffer
Interim Superintendent of Schools
Secretary