City Gets Artificial Turf for $357,401 Less Than MCPS .@GburgMD .@mcps #artificialturf

The City of Gaithersburg bought new artificial turf for a new installation on a City park.

But, the City of Gaithersburg is only going to spend $942,599 for the brand new artificial turf football field.

Walter Johnson High School
artificial turf shredding
Summer 2014

What is wrong with those folks? Don't they know that for another $357,401 they could have bought the exact same brand of artificial turf that the Board of Education has chosen as their sole source/no bid supplier?

You know, the same brand of artificial turf that is currently shredding over at Walter Johnson High School after only 5 years and is in line to be purchased for Churchill High School.

...Hellas Construction submitted a bid for just over $1.14 million this past winter. It was the only company to submit a bid proposal for the project to the city during the month-long solicitation period, which ran from Feb. 7 to March 13, acting Public Works Director Ollie Mumpower said at the meeting.
To bring the bid price more in line with the city’s estimate, staff worked with the company to locate savings, according to Mumpower. After shaving off some unnecessary costs, the new bid came in at $942,599...

 http://www.gazette.net/article/20140507/NEWS/140509484/gaithersburg-awards-contract-to-install-turf-field-at-lakelands-park&template=gazette


No need to lose any sleep over this overspending, the Montgomery County Inspector General is fine with the Board of Education overpaying for no bid artificial turf. What's a few hundred thousand of tax dollars here and there?

...Montgomery County Inspector General Edward Blansitt confirmed with The Town Courier that, in response to two complaints in 2012, his office conducted a preliminary, “thorough” inquiry to see whether the cost-benefit analysis used to select the supplier, FieldTurf, was flawed. “The findings were [that the methods used were] consistent with those conducted by other organizations nationwide after weeding out the influence of both the natural and synthetic turf industries. … We found there was no reason to spend staff time and resources on whether the cost-benefit analysis was done flawlessly,” he said.
Blansitt said his office did find that M-NCPCC had relied on expertise from a specific consultant with ties to FieldTurf in selecting the supplier’s standards. The investigators have since “adjusted their standards,” he said, and MCPS did not rely on the consultant in question...

 http://www.gazette.net/article/20140507/NEWS/140509484/gaithersburg-awards-contract-to-install-turf-field-at-lakelands-park&template=gazette