Great Way to Bid a Contract
- The Illinois Tollway on Thursday awarded a $64 million construction contract to a New York-based firm that admitted committing fraud and paid a $7.5 million penalty in connection with an alleged minority hiring scheme in that city.
Judlau Contracting Inc.'s bid was the lowest of four received by the Tollway for construction of new interchange ramps at Interstate 290 and Thorndale Avenue in Itasca.
Judlau’s contract with the Tollway, and the penalty settlement, were first reported by the Tribune Saturday.
Illinois State Toll Highway Authority staff defended the contract, saying that the Illinois Department of Transportation certified Judlau and that it was the “lowest responsible bidder.”
Officials said the Tollway is required by law to award construction contracts to the lowest bidder, and that Judlau had not been found guilty of any criminal activity.
We understand the low-bid aspect, seeing as how Illinois firms are notorious for underbidding and then jacking up the bill on cost overruns, but farming out the corruption, too? How about tweaking the law to read that the Tollway is required to grant the job to the lowest bidder who doesn't have a shady past involving fines, frauds or schemes?
Labels: state politics
posted by SCC at 12:01 AM
24 Comments:
I am sure that the appropriate amount of money will appear in the appropriate pockets. It is the democrat way.
Sometimes I think your state could not function if it was run by honest people.
Every Illinois tax bill should come with a jar of Vaseline.
You don't suppose the contract was able to be underbid because of illegal immigrant labor do you?
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How about hiring in-state firms?
On a LOT of work, Illinois awards contracts to out-of-state firms who bring in people from other states to do the work.
I have seen this a lot in systems work (IT work).
If you have people living here, you need to pay a certain wage because of their cost-of-living. If you have to compete with outside companies they are at an advantage because they can pay their people less. This holds true even more if they are bringing in foreign workers to do the work (Not even US citizens)
And you wonder why Illinois has a high unemployment rate? Politicians are more concerned about awarding contracts to those giving them campaign money then those who are their actual constituents.
I am really surprised that a Tollway contract went to an out-of-state firm. Those are usually awarded to in-state companies (who throw a LOT of campaign money around).
Evidently, they didn't throw enough this time.
We'll see how good the roads are after they get rebuilt.
And an Illinois co.
Eh. Taxpayers shouldn't have to overpay to someone else just because the low bidder is scum.
It's a sorry state of affairs when the Illinois tollway can't even hire a local crook.
Who would have imagined the day when Illinois/Chicago would have to import fraud?
Not a problem. Rahm Emanuel will just say that he has to raise everyone's property taxes to pay for it.
Easy-peasy!
It is the Illinois way.
More than likely all the bidders got in a room and decided who would get the contract. All of the bidders will be a sub to the winner. Thats how it works.
The Illinois Tollway is one of the most corrupt agencies in state government. No surprise here. What a joke.
I am sure that the appropriate amount of money will appear in the appropriate pockets. It is the democrat way.
It's the Republican way, also...
What a shame that a competent Illinois construction company couldn't be granted this project.
Remember too, that you get what you pay for-minus a lot usually.
I thought they had to award it to the "lowest RESPONSIBLE bidder" - responsible meaning "no corrupt crooks" (like Wight - a previous corrupt contractor that worked on the Tollway)...
Fuck Illinois...
So what could this phrase actually mean?
"...a New York-based firm that admitted committing fraud and paid a $7.5 million penalty in connection with an alleged minority hiring scheme in that city. "
"minority hiring scheme" did this firm
A. They had to pretend to be minority or female owned or the rigged process and set asides would keep them from getting contracts.
B. They could not find or hire enough qualified and willing minority workers and had to keep or hire non-minority workers to fill the contract.
Their real crime might have been being born non-minority. Can't blame them for trying to make a living against a corrupt system.
I am retired now but since high-school, college and all my working life I had to put up with that Affirmative Action, Standardization, Race Norming, "we have to make up for past differences" and "you had certain advantages because you are white" crap.
Never in my life has the playing field been level and it may never be level for my kids and grandkids.
The company running the State lottery underbid everyone else too. Then once the bid was won they basically said are you kidding me? we can't do this. Then they wanted the contract redone increasing the bid to the level of the competitor that they outbid.
Illinois corruption to the core
When it comes to doing business with the State, I believe that previous corruption convictions are a pre-requisite.
LMFAO.
Must be a skill shortage in Illinois like the politicians been talking about. We have to outsource the taxpayers money to another State.
Oh wait. Nope. We're not only outsourcing to another State but a quick check of the H1-B foreign visa site shows that this company just cannot find qualified skilled cost estimators and other positions.
So they have to bring in immigrants to do the job as an H1-B visa sponsor.
Yep, with real employment running about 20% The so-called skills shortage is so bad that they just can't find people.
Can you believe that!!??
No, Neither can I!
True Democrat style...pay the fine without admitting wrongdoing, then you're not guilty of a crime. Or return questionable campaign donations after the fact and say you didn't know.
The next lowest bidder was probably $1.35 over, but they'll get the next round of Ohare expansion project. Oh wait, wasn't this Tollway project suppose to feed into the airport? Didn't the airlines balk at adding a new western terminal that this toll road was to make it accessible from the west? Another road to No-Where.
These construction "jobs" are killing the Illinois ecomony if not just making traffic unbearable. How many years has the I-90 to Wisc been under construction...they won't even let you out of this state without a fight and your $$.
The tollway sucks!
Sounds like Quinn and the Democrats (Communists) are up to their corruption again, as usual
For all the talk about 'reform', it's still business as usual in Illinois. Our politicians simply do not know how to do things ethically, because they've never learned how. All they know is 'this is how we've always done it'.
We HAVE to get rid of the too-long entrenched, the legacy families and the carpetbaggers (you know who you are, Rahm).
Sounds like Brighton western and krug
They were busted for attempting to bribe a il senator for increasing the weight semi cement mixers could carry
(imagine that an il politician taking a bribe
They used to ream the state and the tollway by bidding on jobs one would be low, then subcontract work to the other two ad then have "cost overruns "
Thus lowballing
The original bid and final cost of a project are two very different numbers. They can low ball the cost of a project while make up the difference with extras, cost overruns and of course the people they are forced to hire from one of the many affirmative action groups. I give you Millenium Park as a perfect example of how the scam is run. I worked on that job.
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