Chicago Officials Circumvent Competitive Bidding Rules
by Amanda Griffin-Johnson Competitive bidding rules help governments save money, increase transparency, and avoid “pay-to-play” politics. Unfortunately, government officials don’t always play by the rules. The Chicago Tribune reports: City officials circumvented competitive bidding rules to steer a $23 million digital-radio contract to Schaumburg-based Motorola, according to City Hall’s top watchdog and documents obtained by the Tribune. Inspector General...
by Amanda Griffin-Johnson
Competitive bidding rules help governments save money, increase transparency, and avoid “pay-to-play” politics. Unfortunately, government officials don’t always play by the rules. The Chicago Tribune reports:
City officials circumvented competitive bidding rules to steer a $23 million digital-radio contract to Schaumburg-based Motorola, according to City Hall’s top watchdog and documents obtained by the Tribune.
Inspector General Joseph Ferguson concluded that officials at Chicago’s 911 center falsified paperwork to justify giving the contract to a preselected firm. That company is identified as Motorola in documents obtained by the Tribune through an open records request.
Office of Emergency Management and Communications officials said using Motorola would preserve “the city’s prior investment of nearly $2 million” in Motorola equipment bought earlier. But the city actually paid only $350,000 for that equipment, according to Ferguson’s report.
“OEMC had falsified documents to push the initial purchase through an unrelated contract with the vendor,” the report concluded. “OEMC essentially ‘bootstrapped’ a $23 million contract on an earlier, $350,000 fraudulently obtained purchase.”
When investigators began asking questions, they had trouble determining “who was responsible, because of the debilitating combination at (emergency management) of high turnover, endemic finger-pointing, poor or nonexistent internal controls and missing paperwork,” the report stated.
Transparency and accountability are essential aspects of responsible government. If you want to help prevent corruption and waste in your local government, learn more about the Local Transparency Project