Bids were recently accepted by Garland Independent School District for replacement of athletic field turf and at the Jan. 20 meeting, the board of trustees voted to award the job to Hellas Construction, Inc., one of five companies that submitted bids.
The Hellas bid totaled $8,876,000 and was not the lowest, or second lowest, bid. FieldTurf USA, Inc., the lowest bidder has now filed suit against Garland ISD.
The project includes replacement of turf and related tasks at Homer B. Johnson Stadium along with Sachse, Rowlett, Lakeview Centennial, North Garland, Naaman Forest and South Garland high schools.
The bid amounts, from lowest to highest, are listed below:
FieldTurf USA, Inc. $7,622,179
Mid-America Golf & Landscape, Inc. $7,833,521
Hellas Construction, Inc. $8,876,000
Paragon Sports Constructors, LLC $11,079,500
ProGrass, LLC $12,657,718
The FieldTurf bid was $1.25 million less than the Hellas bid and the Mid-America Golf & Landscape, Inc. bid came in at $1.04 million less.
Both FieldTurf and Mid-America questioned why their bids were not chosen over the higher Hellas bid.
Evaluation categories and scores are below:
Out of a possible 100 points, Hellas scored 94 and FieldTurf received 92. Mid-America scored 84 points.
Representatives from Mid-America and FieldTurf said that preparing these bids costs thousands of dollars and they would both like to know why their bids were rejected.
FieldTurf’s suit requests copies of “Hellas Construction’s response to the RFP; documentation related to the district’s ranking, grading or scoring criteria used in evaluating responses to the RFP; how each proposal was ranked or scored; the order of ranking or scoring; analysis of the proposals; and all agreements and contracts contemplated by GISD related to the RFP.”
Chris Patton of Field Turf addressed the board of trustees at their Jan. 20 meeting.
“We spent months putting a bid together working with all parties involved including district personnel and relevant contractors in an effort to provide the most value possible to the Garland School District,” he said. “We’ve complied by all bid requirements and should grade higher than all the other bidders…”
He added that the FieldTurf client list includes more than 300 NCAA teams including the Oregon Ducks, Ohio State Buckeyes, and the Air Force, Naval and U.S. Military Academies. Some of their Texas installations include the University of Texas, Texas Tech, TCU, Texas A&M and Garland’s Williams Stadium. Additionally, the suit states that FieldTurf’s client list includes 28 of 32 NFL teams.
“On the bid opening we were surprised and delighted to discover that we were $211,342 and $1,253,821 under the next two competitive bids,” Patton said.
Patton asked the board to explain how the bid award is justified.
“We offer $1,253,821 in savings to the district,” he said.
The $1.25 million difference in the FieldTurf bid and the $1.04 million of the Mid America bid have an impact on all those who pay taxes to GISD and taxpayers should be able to expect full disclosure on how their money is spent.
Board president Rick Lambert asked for an explanation of why the district awarded the bid to Hellas.
Joel E. Falcon, executive director of the School Facilities Department, said that they used RLK Engineering, a board-approved outside company, to do the assessment.
The evaluation process was explained: Bids were reviewed by RLK Engineering. GISD officials then met with representatives from the Athletics Department including Cliff Odenwald, athletic director, and people from maintenance and facilities. It was stated that they looked at the bidders’ history and past performance and agreed on Hellas unanimously.
It was also stated that Hellas hires their own employees and do not sub out the work which is important because that can cause “all kinds of issues.”
Trustee Charles Axe asked if there had been problems with the Williams Stadium job.
Odenwald’s answer was no, but he added that it had been a different situation as it was awarded to a general contractor because of problems with the track, fencing and other items. He said that FieldTurf was selected for the turf only for that field but none of the sub-base work was done by them.
Odenwald also said that the Field Turf product installed at HBJ in 2006 has not been a good product.
Field Turf admits to having a bad batch of turf in the past and said that they had remedied problems it had caused.
Superintendent Bob Morrison said that there are two issues that can go wrong during turf installation – either the work done underground or the work on top where the turf starts to deteriorate.
“When a company subcontracts everything, what ends up happening if there is a problem, finger pointing happens,” Morrison said.
He said that the turf people blame the people who did the underground work and those who did the underground work say that the problem is with the turf.
Morrison also said that Patton had mentioned in a meeting that they had some quality control issues. Patton said later that those issues, as mentioned above, had been corrected.
The superintendent’s concern, however, is not reflected in the evaluation, as FieldTurf and Hellas each received the highest possible score, 15, in the Quality of Goods & Services category.
Another reason cited for selecting Hellas Construction was that they are a local company. Their address as shown on their website is 12710 Research Boulevard #240 in Austin with regional offices in San Diego, California; Seattle, Washington; Liberty Hill, Texas; Dadeville, Alabama; and Chatsworth, Georgia.
Work done in the past for GISD by Hellas includes installation of new track surfaces and sub base repairs on fields at Sachse, South Garland, Lakeview Centennial, Naaman Forest, North Garland and Rowlett high schools. Additional work at LCHS included installing curbs and fencing.
The vote to award the bid to Hellas was unanimous.
“We are mystified by the decision of Garland ISD to award the contracts to the third lowest bidder – costing taxpayers an additional and unnecessary $1.25 million in the process. As the artificial turf industry leader, FieldTurf is committed to fair and responsible pricing, which is reflected in our bid of $7,622,179,” Gill said in a written statement. “So far we have been given no explanation from the board of trustees for their decision to accept the higher bid of $8,876,000 from Hellas Construction for the same scope of work.”
FieldTurf’s suit states that the “basis for evaluation, and ultimately scoring, is unclear and arbitrary.”
It further states that “Despite the fact that the RFP did not require any specific information or submittals as to safety record, GISD assigned two points to Hellas Construction (the maximum available points for its safety record) in the Bid Tabulation, while failing to assign any points to the other four contractors.”
RLK Engineering and Hellas donated to the Vote Yes Campaign before last year’s bond election.