watchdog

Wednesday, August 30, 2006

AN EMAIL FROM A WHISTLE BLOWER!!!

I just received an email from a brave soul with knowledge of Shelby County government. Thank you for alerting watchdog.

The message points out an upcoming bid package for the County BID NO. SB I001230 for Dell Computers. The bid due date is September 12, 2006 at 2:30 PM. The whistle blower points out that the County can buy Dell computers off of a State contract for a very cheap price with a considerable savings over the likely winner of this bid, Thomas Consultants.

Watchdog has posted a lot of information on Thomas Consultants in the past pointing out their successful contracts with the MLGW, the City of Memphis and the County. Here is a partial list of Thomas Consultants deals.
MLGW for $1,974,572
MLGW for $1,420,812
City of Memphis thru the ACS contract for $2,351,055
Shelby County Government for $934,856.21

We have been told that Thomas Consultants does a good job. The point is what is it costing the taxpayers for these minority contracts? We do not know although the Shelby County contract above appeared to cost more than a quarter million dollars over and above the Gateway price.

The success of Thomas Consultants raises the question of whether this firm should be graduated. I refer to a letter dated April 20, 2004 to the Mid-South Minority Business Council from Carlee M. McCullough, Esq., Contract Compliance Officer. In this letter she pointed out the graduation of Gipson Mechanical. Surely Thomas Consultants more than meets this requirement and no longer deserves special consideration at the expense of the taxpayer.