State Report Says Firetruck Purchases Often Not Fair Process

Wednesday, September 17 2008 @ 05:39 pm EDT

Contributed by: CBrining



From the Atlantic City Press Published: Wednesday, September 17, 2008

By DEREK HARPER Statehouse Bureau, 609-292-4935

TRENTON - A report from the state Commission of Investigation says that the purchase of firetrucks, some of the most expensive items municipal governments own, can easily overwhelm a small town's ability to ensure proper accountability and transparency. "In many instances, the competitive procurement process that is required by law is reduced to a sham in which the public's business is ruled by private interests," the commission wrote.

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The commission advised that the Department of Community Affairs assume oversight and control of firetruck purchases, that firetruck companies be required to provide more detail on the apparatus, and that state and ethics laws be enhanced to explicitly cover local fire personnel to ward off collusion and conflicts of interest.

The commission, in looking at several dozen of the more than 700 local fire companies across New Jersey, raised questions about costs and quality of the final product. It found cozy relations between suppliers and fire companies as well as instances where companies were able get fire companies to use their proprietary truck data in requests for proposals, virtually assuring their business would win the $250,000 to $1 million contract.

Furthermore, the proprietary, customized nature of the industry makes it practically impossible to make meaningful comparisons, the report said.

And when towns get the bill, it is frequently a lump-sum invoice. These can hide unexpected costs of promotion and advertising. "In one instance, taxpayers unwittingly paid for a firetruck sales representative and three of his friends to play golf in a charity outing - a tab worth several thousand dollars," the report said. The report found almost 60 of 80 firetruck purchases it looked at used proprietary firetruck information in requests for proposals. It singled out six such municipalities where that gave the winning bidder an early advantage, including Atlantic County's Galloway Township.

Since 2001 the township's five volunteer companies have bought from different manufacturers, but the report said bid specifications almost always favored the eventual winner.

For instance, the commission found a Kovatch Mobile Equipment Corp. representative provided the Bayview Fire Co. with truck drawings in 2001 and 2007, months before a request for proposals was issued. Subsequently the commission said the only bids were from KME: about $250,000 in 2001 for a pumper truck and more than $930,000 for an aerial platform truck in 2007.

In 2002, the South Egg Harbor Fire Department issued their request for proposals - with proprietary truck designs from American LaFrance, which subsequently was the lone bidder for the $260,386 truck.

When the Germania Fire Co. issued a request with specifics proprietary to KME in 2006, a competitor from Pierce Manufacturing, Inc. complained.

"Since the Bid Specifications [sic] used for this project are proprietary to one manufacturer," the report quotes him writing, "it is virtually impossible to list each and every item that is different from that specified."

KME eventually got the contract for $382,764, the report said. The $385,248 Pierce bid was found deficient in more than two dozen technical areas and rejected.

The commission also found that since 2003, 67 of 90 truck-dealer sales representatives in New Jersey were also paid or volunteer firefighters.

The commission also found instances where these representatives orchestrated sales to their own company, pocketing thousands of dollars in sales commissions in the process.

While not mentioned in the report, this issue has surfaced periodically in local towns.

In 1999, Jay Davenport was both Mizpah Volunteer Co.'s Fire Chief and a salesman for the Evergreen Fire Company. An indictment alleged he used the two positions to land a $3,000 commission that year after Hamilton Township bought a truck from Evergreen. The charge was later dropped in 2003 after Davenport pleaded guilty to stealing equipment from his Mizpah and selling it to the nearby Belcoville Vo

lunteer Fire Co. And in Longport, the state Local Finance Board fined former Mayor William Fiore $250 in 1996 after Fiore helped approve more than $52,000 in contracts between 1989 and 1994 with his employer Fireline Sales and Service. He married company president Carol Cimini in 1994, separating about two years later.

E-mail Derek Harper: dharper@pressofac.com

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