MCPS James Song's Reliance on Purchasing Network is Detrimental to MCPS Budget

The disintegrating Walter Johnson
artificial turf.

At the Council's public hearing yesterday MCPS' Director of Construction James Song stated that MCPS "piggybacks" on artificial turf purchases through something called the Keystone Purchasing Network.  

Mr. Song does not put our Requests for Proposals or request Bids for any artificial turf projects. He claims he simply "uses" a price from the Keystone Purchasing Network.  

Yet, in reality the Keystone price is extremely high and in jurisdictions that have bid out their purchase of FieldTurf artificial turf they have achieved significant savings over the Keystone price.

Here's what the Board of Education paid for the FIELDTURF artificial turf at these two high schools:

5/25/2012    Gaithersburg High School    $4.47 per square foot

10/17/2012  Paint Branch High School    $4.47 per square foot

Pennsylvania's Keystone Purchasing Network price:  $4.89 per square foot

Now, here's the 10/23/2012 price a school system in Pennsylvania can pay for FIELDTURF artificial turf based on the COMPETITIVE BID they received from FIELDTURF:

$3.77 per square foot

Keep in mind that an artificial turf field is about 92,000 square feet.  So a savings of 70 cents per square foot on the two MCPS fields would have yielded savings of almost $130,000 on this one component of the project alone. (There are other parts to an artificial turf field installation.  None of the components are put out for bids by MCPS.)

The $3.77 price that the PA school system can pay for their FIELDTURF is a full $1.00 cheaper than the Keystone Pennsylvannia purchasing price that Mr. Song claims gives them such a "deal".

So is using the prices from the Keystone Purchasing Network really a good thing for Montgomery County taxpayers? 

No.

The video below show the public comment and County Council discussion of the proposal to install another no-bid artificial turf crumb rubber infill football field at a MCPS high school.
This installation would be at Churchill High School. In the video Mr. Song claims that using the Keystone pricing is good for MCPS and that FieldTurf is the only supplier that MCPS should use for artificial turf.