The City of Philadelphia flagged eleven (yes this one goes to eleven) prime contractors for flaunting the City of Philadelphia’s DBE rules according to the City of Philadelphia Office of Inspector General. According to the news release, the chief offender, William H. Betz, Inc., may have gotten off easy. According to the OIG, Betz facilitated… Continue Reading
Category Archives: Public Contracts
Subscribe to Public Contracts RSS FeedWhat Happens When Funding Runs Out for Your Project?
Posted in Public Bidding, Public ContractsHall of Fame Philadelphia Eagles radio man Merle Reese once saw a play that seemed improbably — and perhaps against the rules — to which he disclaimed “he can’t do that! Yes, he can do that!” You might be thinking the same thing when you receive notice from your federal government client that the project… Continue Reading
Is Your Disparity Study Accurate?
Posted in DBE, Public Bidding, Public Contracts(This guest blog post from John Sullivan, Esquire, a Baltimore lawyer who specializes in DBE and MWBE disparity studies. John’s website is Croson Legal Services. He can be reached via email at jcharlessullivan@yahoo.com) For more than two decades it has been true that subcontracting goals – Disadvantaged Business Enterprise goals on federal work and Minority and… Continue Reading
PA Board of Claims Has Exclusive Jurisdiction Over Contractor Claims
Posted in Public Bidding, Public ContractsMy age makes me part of perhaps the last generation to go to college where computers, the internet, and email were not in widespread use. Before the internet age, Villanova University, where I went to undergraduate and law school, would notify students of the time and location of final exams by posting several small print… Continue Reading
What Happens When You Do Not Follow DBE Rules?
Posted in DBE, Public ContractsYou end up paying $1.15 million to the Justice Department to settle claims that you violated the False Claims Act. As reported by ENR, Caddell Construction of Montgomery, AL, agreed to pay the Justice Department $1.15 million to settle charges that it violated the False Claims Act by — you guessed it — committing DBE… Continue Reading
DBE/MBE Goals Threaten to Make Complete Mess of Project
Posted in DBE, Public Bidding, Public ContractsHere is one I have not seen before, a project that threatens to get derailed because the general contractor proactively included M/WBE goals in its contract. The story reported in the Baltimore Business Journal involves M/WBE hiring goals in Whiting-Turner’s contract to build the Horseshoe Casino in Baltimore. According to the story, Whiting Turner, the project’s general contractor,… Continue Reading
Bid Protests Are Worth It!
Posted in Public Bidding, Public ContractsSo concludes an upcoming report by the former Dan Gordon, the former head of the Office of Federal Procurement Policy. According to Gordon, among the pro’s of a bid protest are: Protests introduce a relatively low-cost form of accountability into acquisition systems by providing disgruntled participants a forum for airing their complaints; They can increase potential bidders’… Continue Reading
How to File a Federal Bid Protest
Posted in Public Bidding, Public ContractsIn recent years, as private work has become more scare, the competition for public projects has increased. In turn, so have the number of bid disputes challenging the awards of those public contracts. Since 2006, the number of bid protest filed with the Government Accountability Office (“GAO”) has nearly doubled from approximately 1,300 protest filed… Continue Reading
Does Anyone Know About Pennsylvania’s Public Private Partnership Law?
Posted in Public ContractsLast week I took PennDot to task for not mentioning Pennsylvania’s new public private partnership legislation when it was complaining about the lack of financing available for infrastructure projects because one of the main purposes of the act is to finance transportation projects. In this weekend’s Wall Street Journal Money magazine, there is an article “How… Continue Reading
Does PennDOT Know We Have a Public Private Partnership Act?
Posted in Public Bidding, Public ContractsThe Pennsylvania Department of Transportation recently released its first ever “Transportation Performance Report, a detailed rating of the state’s efforts in safety, mobility, system preservation and accountability, with the results underscoring the need for additional transportation investment.” According to the report “In the categories of system capacity enhancements, local bridge conditions, pavement reconstruction and transit infrastructure,… Continue Reading
How to Appeal a DBE Certification Denial
Posted in Public ContractsA contractor denied a DBE certification by a State unified certification program approved by the Department of Transportation has the right to appeal the denial to the Department of Transportation. Contractors who have seen their certification revoked can file a similar appeal. Appeals are taken to the Department of Transportation, Office of Civil Rights and must… Continue Reading
Contractors Settling DBE Fraud Cases Are Not Out of the Woods Yet
Posted in Public ContractsChris McCabe at Papubliccontracts.com has a post up about a two City of Philadelphia contractors, who reached settlement agreements with the City of Philadelphia related to alleged inaccurate invoices. Essentially, the City of Philadelphia claimed that Aramark, a food services contractor, overstated the percentage of its overall contract being performed by a certified MBE. Aramark… Continue Reading
Lawyers, Guns, and Money – But Mostly Guns
Posted in Contracts, Public ContractsThe Justice Department’s decision to drop its False Claim Act case against Kellogg, Brown, and Root (“KBR”) over armed private security contractors (“PSC”) in Iraq says as much about the touchy subject over America’s increasing reliance on a private army as it does about the need to fully understand ALL of the terms of your… Continue Reading
Another Guilty Plea in a DBE Case
Posted in Contracts, Public ContractsIf you have not gotten the point by now that you should take DBE regulations serious, you should. The DOT Inspector General posted these two item on its web page today: “On September 11, 2012, Michael Paletta, president of Crossboro Construction Contracting, pled guilty in United States District Court, New York, New York, to a… Continue Reading
More DBE Fraud News
Posted in Public ContractsA story in Oregon’s Daily Journal of Commerce states that the FHWA announced that an investigation revealed that three highway contractors – Bud Construction LLC, Emery and Sons Inc., and Salt and Pepper Construction Co. – “contrived a relationship” to meet DBE program requirements for a $35 million Oregon DOT project completed in February. According… Continue Reading
FAQ’s About DBE Fraud?
Posted in Public Contracts, UncategorizedI received a number of questions regarding my last post about the growing number of federal prosecutions involving fraud in disadvantage business enterprise (“DBE”) programs. Do the same rules apply to MBE and WBE contractors? Yes. MBE’s and WBE’s are both DBE’s. MBE stands for minority business enterprise. WBE stands for women (owned) business… Continue Reading
The Growing Prosecutorial Interest in DBE Fraud
Posted in Public ContractsYesterday, I “attended” an American Bar Association webinar on “Minority Contracting Programs: A Growing Criminal Risk to Corporations.” The message was clear – federal prosecutions of DBE fraud are on the rise. Indeed, federal prosecution of DBE fraud has occurred in recent years in the following states: Florida, Illinois, Kansas, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New York, Ohio,… Continue Reading
DOL to Hold Prevailing Wage Seminar
Posted in Contracts, Davis Bacon, Public Bidding, Public ContractsThe Department of Labor is holding a seminar on the Davis Bacon Act and related federal prevailing wage laws in Philadelphia on July 10-12, 2012. To sign up for a training session, email name, title, organization, email address and training location to whdpwc@dol.com. For more information, visit http://www.dol.gov/whd/govcontracts.
Liquid Assets
Posted in Infrastructure, Public ContractsCheck out this trailer for the PBS documentary “Liquid Assets.” Sums up nicely the need to repair our crumbling infrastructure. It also indirectly makes the case for PPP’s especially in the area of water and sewer systems where private companies (like Philly’s own Aqua American) can upgrade, repair, and manage these systems far more effectively… Continue Reading
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