Guest commentary: Manager's explanation doesn't tell the whole story

Traditionally, 90 percent of contracts issued are indeed placed on accepted competitive guidelines, but those 90 percent represent only 10 percent of the money spent for goods and services. The other 10 percent of the contracts which Mr. Mudd calls "construction contracts" are negotiated procurements, and these cover the preponderance of money spent.

There are many issues surrounding the fairness of placing the negotiated procurements, and there are many books and cases describing this procurement practice. It is not the practice that is potentially flawed, but the management of the practice.

Potential issues, of many, that could plague the construction contracts include fairness and necessity of change orders; oligopoly (a market condition in which sellers are so few that favors are provided to assure fairness to all bidders); a bid grows so significantly since its initial issuance that it should be rebid; a lack of arms-length relationship between the buyer's representatives and the seller's employees on long-term projects; the unspoken tie-ins between the bid architect (consultant) and the successful bidder; obtaining follow-on services by unbid automatic change orders for spare parts, training, upgraded subsystems, building/system growth, etc.

The above are a few of the many problems associated with the construction contracts method, and are available from the U.S. Armed Services which includes the Army, from which Mr. Mudd came to Collier County. The problems with this type of procurement led to the Procurement Integrity Act, adopted for all armed services negotiated procurements, that made it a felony for buyers and sellers to not follow a strict code to ensure integrity in the procurement process.

The construction contract methodology is not flawed. It is the only system usable for certain types of procurements. The implementation of this methodology, and its subsequent arms-length management with regular and periodic audits by outside agencies to assure total compliance, is the system that keeps it working.

Couple this with a mini-Collier County procurement integrity law where both buyers and sellers stand to be chastised for inappropriate actions, and we do have, in fact, a bottom line of good stewardship of our tax dollars.

Mr. Mudd, now for the rest of the story. Please provide the dollar amounts that go with your editorial claims, so we can understand the amounts spent by competitive procurement and construction contracts.

Joe Mumaw is former director of ethics for Westinghouse Electric and adjunct business professor at the University of Maryland. He served on the county's ad hoc committee on ethics in 1998 and until recently served on its productivity committee.