Board seeking bids for firms

New members cite fiscal responsibility, their campaign promise in preparing RFPs for solicitor, architectural firm

The newest members of the North Penn School Board vowed Monday night to keep to a campaign promise, and started a process that could run well into the new year.

Board member Christian Fusco asked staff to prepare a request for proposals seeking quotes from firms to handle the district’s legal and architectural services.

“It’s been discussed in the past, and throughout the campaign, to utilize the RFP process more frequently, to ensure we’re maximize the taxpayers’ investment in our schools, as it relates to professional services,” Fusco said.

“So, in the interest of keeping a promise, I’d like to make a motion to have the business office open RFPs for our professional services, for architect and for legal services,” he said.

During talks on the district’s 2017-18 budget last spring, several of the then-candidates who have since been elected asked if the district could evaluate the costs paid for both outside consultants, which are typically included in the professional services line item in the district budget.

Lansdale-based law firm Dischell Bartle Dooley currently acts as

district solicitor, and Eddystone-based Bonnett Associates as architect, and according to Reporter archives, North Penn paid just under $500,000 in legal expenses in the 2011-12 school year, and an additional $250,000 on special education cases that year. More recent figures on both consultants were not immediately available from district staff.

Director of Business Administration Steve Skrocki said his department will work to have a request drafted by the school board’s Dec. 14 meeting.

“At that time, the board can make any amendments, or we can have a discussion about the timeline and process you’d like to utilize,” he said.

Board member Ed Diasio asked if the RFP for legal services would include general legal services only, or other more specialized fields that might currently fall under other contracts.

“Currently we have a separate

counsel for personnel matters: we have general solicitor matters, special ed[ucation] matters. Will they all be lumped together? Will firms be able to bid on each?”

Skrocki said that would be up to the board: “You can write the RFP as kind of a one-size-fits-all to handle all legal matters, or you can elect to do an RFP for more specialized areas of the law.”

Diasio said he thought it made the most sense to develop a proposal that includes all legal needs, and firms can bid on the entire package, or parts separately. New board member Jonathan Kassa said he has extensive experience in using the RFP process in his day job, and said regularly checking for new vendors and fresh prices “provides an entrepreneurial approach, and is probably more efficient” than not doing so.

“Best case scenario, if we decide on the draft language, we can always do an RFP, a request for qualifications, but it’s best to have the experts come up with the solution, as opposed to

us dictating what the solutions have to be,” he said.

Board member John Schilling urged his fellow members to be careful with how the request was worded, since it could lead to selection of a firm that may be better on price, but less competent or capable than another costing more.

“I’ve talked to other school districts that have done it, and a new guy gets in there, and then all of a sudden you have a million dollars in cost overruns,” Schilling said.

“I’m not against it. I’m just saying, be very, very careful that what is done, is done so we get the best service for the dollar, and the most qualified,” he said.

Fusco said after the meeting he had not personally been involved in the RFP process in his outside career as a teacher, but knew that other new members, particularly Kassa, had experience in doing so. Since the motion to seek an RFP was not on the board’s posted agenda, one resident made a public comment: Upper Gwynedd resident Ruth Damsker, who asked for details on where the bid

package would be posted. “I think it’s a great idea, even though you’re not required to do it for services. We did it at the county level, and found we were very successful,” she said.

Skrocki said the bid package will be discussed further at the board’s Dec. 14 meeting, and once it is finalized it will be posted on the district’s website, on statewide sites where districts and vendors seek and respond to bids, and sent to firms that specialize in those services.

“There’s a small subset of firms that specialize in school law, that specialize in school construction. It might be ten or 15 firms, and we’ll automatically send an RFP directly to the partners of those firms, so they’re aware of it,” he said.

North Penn School Board next meets at 6:30 p.m. on Dec. 11 and 14, both at the district’s Educational Services Center, 401 E. Hancock St. For more information or meeting agendas and materials visit www. NPenn.org or follow @ NPSD on Twitter.