The Española School District and its Board had a near-miss recently, as it skirted entering into a procurement violation.
During the Nov. 20 Española School Board meeting, the agenda listed the award of the request for proposal for the painting of the Española Valley High School gym and foyer to lowest bidder J.M. Painting and Dry Wall, as an action item for the second time. However, this time, Superintendent Danny Trujillo recommended that it not be approved.
“It’s been brought to my attention that we might be in violation of the procurement code,” Trujillo said.
Trujillo said the project would be circumventing the procurement code through piece-mealing projects out at the high school. Earlier in the year, the Board approved painting the high school’s cafeteria and another request for proposal to approve painting the gym’s lower level and the foyers. Instead of recommending the approval, Trujillo said he recommends the Board wait until the District can put together a request for proposal encompassing all painting projects at the high school.
Board Member Annabelle Almager made a motion to not approve, which was seconded by Board Member Lucas Fresquez.
“I’m appalled by the way we’re conducting business here. I really am,” Board Member Andrew Chavez said. “This came up on the agenda last time and the agenda turned out to be null. It comes up on the agenda now. What in the hell are we doing?”
“We’re approving, tabling, not approving,” Board President Ralph Medina said.
“I want to hear from Mr. Torres (small projects manager) and Mr. Cordova (director of facilities). I think there’s some explanation we’re entitled to,” Chavez said. “Why did we go out to bid if we don’t know what we’re doing?”
Joseph Torres said the project went out to bid because the District “jumped” into the project without knowing they were violating the procurement by way of possibly circumventing it.
“It’s circumventing the code. I didn’t realize that. I didn’t know it. I’ll take the blame for it because I didn’t look at it thoroughly enough,” Torres said. “When we look into something, we want to move and we want to move quickly and sometimes we move too quickly.”
Chavez said he did not understand why the District was going forward with projects without knowing what they’re doing.
“We cannot be placing RFPs, request for proposals and anticipate we’re going to have work done, when we don’t know what work we want done. You nod your head, Mr. Superintendent, ‘mmmhmmm,’ but what are we doing about it?” Chavez said.
Chavez said the superintendent should have been monitoring the RFPs with more care, because now the District’s reputation was questionable among contractors.
“You’re so mad, it looks like you have an interest in this project,” Medina said.
Medina accused Chavez of being in violation of Board ethics code by way of being related to the contractor.
“Isn’t your sister married to the son of one of these contractors?” Medina asked. “You can’t even vote on it. Just like you kept me from voting on the land grant just because, even though I wasn’t on the board of directors, I was a member.”
Medina was referring to the Aug. 21 meeting where a lease with the Truchas Land Grant was an action item on the agenda. Initially, Medina, a member of the land grant, voted, but later rescinded his vote due to advice from both Chavez and Trujillo.
“Aren’t you related? Through your sister or your sister-in-law?” Medina said.
Chavez denied being related to any member of the contractor’s family and said Medina was “off-kilter.” In a later interview, Chavez said his sister is married to the son of one of the contractors that bid on the project, but he is not under their employment.
Trujillo said in a Nov. 22 interview he would have to investigate this claim since the accusation was brought up during a meeting.
He said he was not sure if Chavez was any relation to the contractors who bid for the gym and foyer painting project.
Ultimately, Board voted 3-2 to not award the project. Chavez and Board Member Pablo Lujan voted against the motion.
Trujillo said in a Nov. 22 interview the procurement code violation was a change in the scope of the work for the request for proposal. When the RFP went out, the foyer of the gym was going to be part of the project. However, since then, the foyer will more than likely not be a part of the project, he said.
“We were changing the scope of work,” Trujillo said. “We can’t do that. We need to go back out to bid.”
Trujillo said from now on, he would oversee the small projects and procurement in the District until he could create a system in which the procurement codes were known and followed.
Trujillo said he hopes for painting projects will follow a new way of going out to bid. Instead of sending out an RFP for each painting project, the District could either have a four-year lease with multiple painting contractors or send out RFPs in lots, Trujillo said.
District Procurement Officer Gilbert Sanchez said when the District went out to bid in lots, it would send out one RFP with a separate lot for each painting project.
Then, various contractors would bid on separate lots, he said. Sanchez said he would recommended the first option of a district-wide lease with contractors on a rotating basis.