Independent candidate for Cuyahoga County Executive reveals a Public Procurement Reform and Honest Contracting plan designed to save taxpayers money and curb abuses exposed by federal probe.

 

In light of the recent indictments of vendors related to Cuyahoga County purchasing, Ken Lanci, Independent candidate for Cuyahoga County executive, today proposed a series of reforms to the current procurement process, adding an innovative collaboration that will save taxpayer dollars in county and municipal governments, schools, nonprofits and businesses.

The proposal includes a multi-point plan to bring transparency, best practices, substantial cost savings, and integrity to public contracting.

“When ‘Public Official One’ and ‘Public Official Two’ are offering advice to crooked vendors as to how to beat the competitive bidding system, we have a systems problem that needs to be immediately addressed,” said Lanci, a veteran member of the Greater Cleveland business community. “I’ve been in business for 40 years and a proven problem solver, efficiency manager and job creator. “These common sense changes must be made.”

Highlights of the Ken Lanci Public Procurement Reform and Honest Contracting include:  

1. Encouraging Local Vendors:  Establish vendor preferences for locally-owned and operated firms. Lanci understands “the multiplier effect” of keeping dollars local and benefiting the local economy.  “We have so many great companies in Cleveland, and we need to encourage them by investing in them,” said Lanci. “This creates jobs for our own people, not those in other cities.”

2. Opportunities for Veterans, Women and Minorities: Generate opportunities for local businesses owned by military veterans, female-owned enterprises, and minority-owned enterprises. Lanci said, “Cuyahoga County can do so much to encourage entrepreneurship, and this is an area that can be very fruitful for the county and the creation of jobs for people who need them most.”

3. Corrupt Organization Ban: Create a hard ban on companies that violate the law and company officers who have stolen from the public. “I’m serious about cleaning up corruption,” said Lanci.

4. ‘Change Orders’ and ‘Scope of Project’ Changes: Establish ‘change order’ and ‘scope of project’ reform that assures scrutiny and transparency. “It’s an area that has been a constant problem leading to a handful of indictments,” said Lanci. “It is at the heart of the county crisis and I will put a stop to it.”

 5. Reform Stacked and Biased Contracts: Eliminate discriminatory language in bid specifications that currently excludes most vendors, or tailors a bid to just one specific vendor. This came to light recently when a public official helped a corrupt company receive work. “Contracts are corrupt from the first bid opportunity by essentially providing only one vendor or a small group of vendors the opportunity to bid. This harms taxpayers, and we then are unable to get the most bang for our buck,” said Lanci, who has extensive contracting experience in the private sector.

6. Performance Based Rewards: Use economic incentives to complete projects on time and under cost. “We must incent companies to be good vendors and maximize the value for the people of Cuyahoga County,” said Lanci.

7. No Bid Contracts Are Eliminated:  “I believe in vibrant competitive bids to ensure vendor honesty and value,” said Lanci. “Bidding contracts is just smart business.”

8. Countywide Procurement Pool: Create a formal entity to handle contracts for large and small projects to maximize volume discounts and smart consumerism for communities, schools, nonprofits and small businesses. “It will maximize tax dollars and allow communities to collaborate to save taxpayers real dollars,” said Lanci.

 

Here is the actual proposal:

Procurement Reform and Honest Contracting Proposal

Independent Ken Lanci calls for dramatic reform to save taxpayers’ money, promote local jobs, and eliminate contract steering and corruption.

The recent county government scandal with allegations of contract steering, kickbacks and corrupt practices is a direct result of not just corrupt individuals, but a system that is outdated and no longer works effectively for Cuyahoga County.

A healthy dose of smart, incentive-oriented procurement and contracting is needed to restore credibility and curb massive cost overruns and taxpayer rip offs on public projects. The recent indictment of County Contractor Anthony Ma comes just weeks after he was awarded yet another contract by Cuyahoga County demonstrates the critical need for reform.

Dramatic and wholesale reform are needed to right the ship, and quickly. Ken Lanci has been buying and selling products and services for over 40 years. His plan to bring innovative, incentive based procurement and contracting will benefit Cuyahoga County as it cleans up the mess and goes forward into brighter and more prosperous days.

Encouraging local vendors:

Lanci’s proposal for Procurement Reform and Honest Contracting puts stock in the “multiplier effect” that comes with spending and keeping money locally. And he practices what he preaches by using local vendors for his private companies.

Lanci also believes that Cuyahoga County should put their money where their mouth is and establish that when we do use taxpayers’ money, it will only be used to help create and retain local jobs.  

There is incredible talent in this community. We need to take steps to encourage it and not allow out-of-town interests that do not benefit the local economy.

Opportunities for minority, veteran, and female-owned businesses:

Opportunities will also be created for businesses that are majority owned by members of recognized minority groups, veterans of the U.S. Armed Forces, and females. These individuals deserve equal access to county opportunities, consistent with policies that have benefited the State of Ohio.

Corrupt organization ban—nobody should benefit from corruption:

-Prohibit officers and key employees that have been convicted of corruption in the past 10 years from doing business with Cuyahoga County.

 

-Ban any new business entity made up of relatives and former associates of an entity that has been convicted of corruption in the last 10 years from bidding or receiving county contracts and or purchased goods.

-Any organization that is indicted for corruption in any legal jurisdiction during the course of its contract or relationship with Cuyahoga County shall immediately have that contract brought before the executive and county council for review.

-Include a claw-back provision in every contract and procurement bid that will allow the county to directly recover all, or part of, the cost of a good or service if the county has been defrauded in any way.

Project change orders and change in scopes:

The Cuyahoga County corruption scandal has shown evidence as to how even public officials who are fiduciaries of the county believe that change orders to contracts are ways to get around competitive bidding and further deceive the county into believing that they were receiving the best value service.

In fact, ‘Public Official Number One’ and ‘Public Official Number Two’ openly spoke to each other about encouraging bidders for county services to bid low in order to obtain bids, but then to add expensive change orders to projects that incorporate the true cost. By hiding those costs, change orders do a disservice to true competitive bidding and it’s clear that they can be abused to manipulate nefarious activities.

While understanding that some circumstances necessitate changes to contracts, the Lanci plan will minimize the scope and usage of change orders and circumstances that they are allowed. With respect to construction change orders, Lanci will work closely with the Cuyahoga County Council to reform this process and add value for taxpayers who have seen project costs skyrocket.

The crux of the Lanci’s plan will require project change orders and change in scopes be pre-approved and publicly disclosed, while maintaining flexibility for county departments to move projects along swiftly.

Performance-based rewards:

All vendors of the county will be asked to sharpen their respective pencils and provide enhanced value. There will be monetary rewards for vendors who come in substantially under budget and complete projects on time. 

Request for performance and qualification reform and competitive bidding:

Time and again, public contracting can be accused of either steering or rigging the contracting process. The latest county corruption scandal alleges that some contract bids were unfair from the beginning, with allegations that the specifications were written to specifically exclude certain bidders or to benefit others. This is not in the public interest. It is an inherently flawed system, and must be thoroughly reformed.

Lanci believes in robust public bidding for taxpayer financed projects. The current “bid” system, as well as the “request for proposal” and “request for qualification” approach, allow too many opportunities for exclusion of vendors and are expensive and time consuming.

The Lanci way is a precedent-making change for a public sector entity. In what could become a model for innovative public-sector agencies, the county will assure that discriminatory language that narrows the pool of vendors or biases the proposals will be eliminated. The vendors will work with county personnel to assure that specification and parameters with the county do not bias the bid process.  In this manner, vendors can bid on county services without discriminatory language that does not benefit taxpayers. 

The county's procurement team and professionals will discern which supplier provides the best overall value to the county for that service. All bids will be public and comparable—an online system will be managed to compare all bids and their comparative value. No bid contracts will be eliminated, every contract will be bid either formally or informally, but having no bid contracts are not in the best interest of Cuyahoga County.

All projects must come in at least one percent (1%) of the original bid and no longer will it be acceptable to grossly over bid. The county will hold vendors accountable to their original bids.

County procurement will be simple, straightforward, address actual needs, and provide the best possible overall value, including service, cost, time and ease of working with a contractor. All those will be factors in vendor selection, not just pricing.

County-Wide Procurement Pool:

The days are gone where county agencies, communities, school districts, boards, commissions and other public entities can purchase products separately and not maximize taxpayer value. We are all in this together.

Phase 1: With the Lanci plan, all county agencies will be required to work together to form a purchasing pool under centralized control. It’s called the Cuyahoga County Joint Procurement Group and it will work to reduce costs and maximize value of all products procured in the county by qualifying vendors, establishing rebate programs, creating uniform best practices, and encouraging local vendor opportunities.

Phase 2: All public entities will be asked to join the Joint Procurement Group. This includes schools, municipalities, courts, county agencies and entities such as the Regional Transit Authority, The Port Authority, Metro Parks, Metro Health Hospital, the courts system and more.

With strength in numbers, Cuyahoga County residents will be afforded best value products and services at far better overall cost, service and value. We can no longer afford to stand alone as separate entities, we must stand together as one Cuyahoga County and become the first county in the state to truly maximize our collective buying power and return value and tax dollars to the people.

Lastly, nonprofit organizations, arts entities, charities and businesses that receive grants, abatements, or support from the county in any way may also choose to participate in the pool.  Millions of dollars can be saved for all.

Conclusion:

Lanci will work to reform a system inherently flawed and easily manipulated for corruption, restore trust, and finally return value and money in all that the county does on behalf of all its citizens.

The abuses outlined in the county corruption probe, from one sided printing contracts to change order manipulation to rigging contracts, proves that the system has failed.  Lanci will clean it up and have a procurement system that will be emulated and modeled around the country.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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