08 May, 2011
Broward didn’t seek bids to buy office furniture for 17 years – Sun
Posted by: admin In: furniture
WHAT: One company has a monopoly on selling office furniture to the county
COST TO US: Unknown. Competitive bidding is considered a must for governments that want the best deal. Broward spent about $14 million on one brand of furniture without seeking bids.
WHO’S RESPONSIBLE: Broward County Commission from 1993 to 2010
The office furniture in Broward County‘s court and government offices matches. Cubicle walls are mirror images of each other. And to keep it that way, taxpayers may have paid extra.
Since 1993, the county has allowed one company to hold a monopoly on its office furniture business in the county courthouse and county hall, never seeking better deals from anyone else.
Broward County commissioners were indignant at a recent meeting when Commissioner Kristin Jacobs brought it up.
“If one office needs a desk and there’s a spare desk somewhere else, we can start having some differences in the offices,” Broward Mayor Sue Gunzburger agreed. “There is no reason that every office has to look alike.”
Starting in 2005, even more county business went to Workplace Resource without bids. Almost all the furniture bought for any county office, or for the libraries, the airport and Port Everglades, was bought from that company.
That’s $14 million in furniture, $11 million of it since 2005, county Purchasing Director Brenda Billingsley said. All of it from Workplace Resource.
Even if the county went out for a bid, commissioners had voted in 1987 only to use one brand, Herman Miller, and there’s only one company that sells that in South Florida to government: Workplace Resource.
Billingsley, in her job for four years, said she’d already identified this as a problem and is reviewing all longtime contracts.
It’s a “safe assumption” the county can save money by going out to bid every five years or so, she said.
This isn’t the only longstanding, uncompetitive contract Billingsley is reviewing. The county has been using the same brands or providers of things such as iced tea in concession stands, mosquito spray and paddle boats, some of them for decades, purchasing records show.
Angel Vargas, who manages the account for Workplace Resource in Weston, defended the contract, saying he has deeply discounted the items the county buys the most of, like connected seats in the airport. He said the county’s Herman Miller furniture carries a 12-year warranty even if it’s used 24 hours a day, every day.
Example: The county’s desk chairs cost $600, he said. Another company might say its cheaper chair can only be sat on for one eight-hour shift a day, he said, unlike the warranty he gives.
“It’s no different from you buying a product from China with a one-year warranty,” said Vargas. “How can you put that chair next to our chair and say your chair is cheaper?”
The Herman Miller furniture contract was originally intended just for the modular walls and a few other “accessories,” Billingsley said, and only in the courthouse and the Governmental Center downtown.
The modular walls connect to create offices. Those had to be standardized because another brand wouldn’t connect to them.
But at some point, she said, the contract “just sort of morphed,” with other county offices using it instead of seeking the most competitive deal.
“We don’t want that anymore,” Gunzburger told Billingsley when it came up recently.
“It’s over,” agreed Commissioner John Rodstrom.
A competitive process will be used to furnish the planned $328 million county courthouse, everyone agreed. Vargas said Workplace Resource will put in a bid.
bwallman@tribune.com or 954-356-4541