Contracting Services keeps the ball rolling
in strange times

Many ITD groups have worked hard and found ways to continue offering needed services from home during these uniquely challenging times. Add to that list Contracting Services.

"I want to applaud my Advertisement and Award and Infrastructure Related Procurement teams for not missing a step when it comes to advertising and awarding contracts while working from home," said Dana Dietz, supervisor of that section of Contracting Services.

Dietz said the team works with the districts to get their projects ready for advertisement, advertises the projects, posts addendums for the districts, if necessary, conducts public bid openings using Webex, reviews the bids for irregularities, works with the contractors to get the appropriate documentation, assembles the contracts, and gets signatures from all parties and executes the contracts, all while working mostly from home.

"My team of Shauna Dillenbeck, Karen Hanna and Megan Vaudrin (shown left to right in picture above) have done a remarkable job in these unusual times."

They also recently had a unique occurence that they solved in a unique way.

"For the first time, we had a three-way tie for contract bidding," Dietz said. "If it were a two-way tie, we would possibly flip a coin, but we had to do it remotely, and wanted to make sure that it was evident that there was no tampering with the bidding process."

They decided to choose numbered golf balls from a coffee can to select the order that each contractor would select an envelope. Each envelope contained an index card that said either “Low Bidder”, “2nd Bidder”, or “3rd Bidder”.

"One of the three contractors did not show up, so one of our employees chose for them," Dietz added. "That contractor actually won the contract."

Published 05-22-20