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Their company may have a funny name, but officials at The Wackenhut Corporation say they are the rightful winners of a security contract the Metro Finance Department tried to award to someone else. Now, they’re preparing to file a lawsuit against the city, claiming that politics has cost them a job that threatens to leave public spaces in the hands of a low-wage security contractor.
What they’re talking about is a multimillion-dollar proposal to provide security at Metro courthouses, water treatment plants, parks, schools, libraries, the Farmers Market and a host of other government facilities. Wackenhut’s five-year proposal cost $4.7 million more than its chief competitor’s—or $1.4 million higher than Metro’s current costs—but two review panels agreed it was of superior quality. It promised to pay security guards higher wages and provide them with benefits and better training.
The city finance department, however, disagreed—sort of. First, Metro purchasing agent Jeff Gossage endorsed an evaluation committee’s recommendation to go with Wackenhut’s proposal. Three weeks later, he overruled it, opting instead to award the job to Murray Guard, a West Tennessee security firm with longstanding political connections to Nashville Mayor Bill Purcell and finance director David Manning. Wackenhut appealed the decision to a board appointed by the mayor, and won. Then, in mid-March, Finance cancelled the entire contracting process.
It’s been an ugly affair, and it raises a host of questions. The obvious one is whether Gossage caved to pressure to reward Purcell and Manning’s old political allies, although the Scene hasn’t found any concrete evidence to support that contention. At the very least, a tightly controlled, penny-pinching city finance department decided it didn’t like the way things were going, so it spiked the whole process after it had already played out. It’s the bureaucratic equivalent of taking your ball and going home—only, going home benefits your political pals and may or may not weaken city security.
“I guess I understand a little bit why people are, um—because of past relationships—but the fact of the matter is, it is what it appears to be,” says Manning, referring to his, um, past and present relationship with Harlan Matthews, an attorney and former U.S. senator who visited his office not too long ago. (Matthews was also involved in Purcell’s 2003 reelection campaign.) Manning says his old friend called and asked for a meeting without telling him what it was about. When Matthews arrived, he told Manning that he represented Murray Guard, that their proposal was almost $5 million cheaper and thus they should have won the contract. Manning said he didn’t know the specifics of this procurement but would look into it. “I mean, if there’s that big a difference in price, somebody needs to look at it and make sure it’s been handled properly,” he tells the Scene.
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After Matthews left, Manning picked up the phone. “I called Jeff Gossage and said, ‘Here’s the conversation I just had. Would you check on that?’ ” Manning recalls. “He checked on it, called me back and said, ‘I think there is a problem. That is a huge difference in price….’ I said, ‘Just look at it and do what you think is right.’ ”
So in the most benign version of events, Manning—who later recused himself from hearing the appeal—simply asked his purchasing agent to give something a second look. Gossage reconvened the evaluation committee, which had recommended awarding the contract to Wackenhut, but it stood by its decision despite Wackenhut’s higher price tag. Norman Robinson, director of security for the courts, told Gossage that if someone was hurt or killed, it would be up to Gossage to defend why Metro awarded the contract to the lowest bidder.
On Feb. 3, the relatively new purchasing agent sent an email to Manning requesting guidance. “I see [the committee’s] passion on this subject and it is clear they stand firm on the scoring,” he wrote to his boss. “I am not at peace.... I guess I’m seeking wise counsel on my options: set the team’s decision aside; let it stand and go through the protest process; or start the [bidding] process over (not sure what might be gained by doing this?).”
By Feb. 9, it was clear Gossage had made up his mind. He wrote a letter to Wackenhut officials stating that he stood by the evaluation team’s decision to award their company the contract. In an interview, Gossage tells the Scene he merely upheld the award as a formality to keep the process moving, knowing Murray Guard had already filed a protest. “It just made sense to move forward with the protest already on the table,” he says. “It was a procedural thing.” In other words, he didn’t really agree with the decision he upheld.
On Feb. 22, Gossage conducted a formal hearing on the protest. Murray argued, among other things, that Wackenhut’s better training, pay and benefits did not justify paying $4.7 million more for its services. Besides, claimed Murray, their people were told at a pre-proposal meeting not to include benefits in their proposal. (Metro procurement guidelines clearly state that only written instructions count.) The arguments were enough to persuade Gossage, who upheld Murray’s protest and awarded it the contract.
After the meeting, the three Wackenhut officials in attendance headed quickly for the door, they said, because they were upset and surprised by the decision. Gossage hurriedly tracked them down in a hallway, where he pulled them aside and made sure that they were going to appeal his decision. “He literally pursued us and stopped us near a small office…and asked us to protest the decision because there were circumstances beyond his control that he couldn’t discuss,” recalls Malcolm Burchett, Wackenhut’s regional vice president. Bill Kostrub, a local Wackenhut employee, says Gossage told them cryptically that “there’s a reason I did what I did.”
Gossage calls their version of events “a little bit of an exaggeration. They left kind of mad,” he says. “They have administrative rights. I wanted them to know that they could appeal the decision.” As to the “I can’t discuss it” part, Gossage says he doesn’t know why he would have said that. “I did tell them there are reasons why I did what I did,” he says. “I was talking about the decision [I made] at the end.” If they heard intimations of conspiracy, the purchasing director says, they’re misguided. He was simply informing them of their rights.
In any event, what’s done is done. Wackenhut appealed Gossage’s decision to a Purcell-appointed panel and won. Then the finance department cancelled the whole process, citing an ambiguously worded request for proposals. Thursday, Metro Council’s public safety committee will hold a hearing on the matter, mostly because it’s concerned $5 million might have (almost) been spent unnecessarily. Metro Finance is rewriting its request for proposals and promises to be more specific next time around.
For his part, the mayor implies that any complaints about this screwed-up escapade in city contracting are just sour corporate grapes. (He also implies that a reporter looking into the matter is merely carrying Wackenhut’s water. Others in Purcell’s office are more candid about the sloppy way things were handled.) “From a taxpayer’s and a mayor’s standpoint, I don’t think there’s very much harm in starting over,” Hizzoner tells the Scene, before launching into an extensive lecture on government purchasing that incorporates both Nashville history and a discussion of widgets vs. paper products. (Don’t even ask how the Latin phrase post hoc, ergo propter hoc came up.)
Purcell is correct that starting over will allow the finance department to do a better job with the bidding process. After all, Finance says the last one was ambiguous—or at least, they claimed ambiguity when the more expensive proposal won and they moved to throw it out.
You can see why, for Wackenhut officials, the game feels rigged. “No ambiguity seemed to be present until we reached the last stages and Wackenhut seemed to be winning,” says Andy Bedlack, the company’s area manager. “When they turned it over to Murray Guard, there was no ambiguity then. I don’t know how you explain that.” Metro Legal officials say they didn’t review the request for proposals and identify ambiguity until late in the process. The real question may be, why waste the time of two review committees when you’re going to set aside decisions you don’t like?
If a new request for proposals is ever issued, maybe it should incorporate training, wage and benefit standards. Bedlack says his company decided that the way to win the contract was to emphasize those standards itself. “We knew we weren’t going to be the cheapest program, but we built our proposal to their specifications,” he says. “We designed it to be the highest quality.” That’s because, according to the terms of the bid proposal, quality counted more than cost. In retrospect, that’s not so clear.
There was a time not long ago when contract security guards stationed at Metro government buildings used walkers and oxygen tanks. Many were retirees who wanted a low-stress job and didn’t need high wages or benefits. Given the events of the past five years, Purcell is understandably proud that courthouse security has improved on his watch. (“The folks at Wackenhut probably have told you this,” he says with trademark passive aggression.)
But he’s also proud to be a good steward of public money, especially in such tight budget times. A high-quality security proposal with a high price tag represents quite a dilemma for this mayor; from his vantage point, starting over is the best way to resolve it. “I have no doubt that this inconveniences businesses,” Purcell says. “But my responsibility is to this city’s taxpayers. You can write that down, by the way.”