A black-owned highway construction contractor has complained that the State Highway Administration is not following Maryland law properly in awarding contracts that include minority business enterprises.
Lenzie Johnson, president of L&J Construction, is protesting the award of a Baltimore-Washington Parkway contract to Concrete General Inc. because, he says, CGI did not have enough minority participation in its low bid.
L&J Construction was a subcontractor on the proposal by P. Flanigan & Sons Inc., a $10.6 million bid that was second lowest but $1.8 million higher than CGI?s bid. However, CGI?s winning bid did not have sufficient minority participation, Johnson said, and after the company won the bid, the state allowed it to search for minority firms. It contacted him to be a subcontractor at a lower price.
“We?re being asked for pricing after the fact for bid,” Johnson said.
Johnson?s company has been doing excavation, trucking and demolition work for 16 years and has 38 employees and $8 million in annual revenues.
Both L&J and Flanigan have protested the award. State Highway Administrator Neil Pedersen told Wayne Frazier, president of the Maryland Washington Minority Contractors Association, in a letter that his agency “will vigorously review the serious allegations contained in your complaint.”
“The SHA is committed to maintaining fair practices with regard to the MBE program, to the fullest extent of the law, and will do so here,” Pedersen said.
Johnson said he protested because “I?ve been on the other end of it.” He said the Maryland Transportation Authority, which runs the bridges and tunnels, had previous rejected a bid his company participated in because there was insufficient minority participation. The agency “abided by the rule,” Johnson said.
Frazier said the highway administration had followed this practice for years, but 2004 legislation changed the requirements.
“It?s blatant disregard of the law” to grant the bid and then allow them to shop for more minority contractors, Frazier said.
“Granted, the state winds up with a lower cost, but they?re not playing by the rules,” he said.
On Wednesday, Frazier and state legislators involved in the 2004 law asked the attorney general?s office to overrule the SHA interpretation of the law.
SHA has an outreach program to minority contractors and it encourages prime contractors to meet the goal of 25 percent minority participation.
“We let about 350 contracts a year” worth about $700 million, “and we only get about three to four bid protests,” SHA spokeswoman Valerie Edgar said.
Do you think the state should require minority- and women-owned business get 25 percent of state contracts for goods and services? Respond below in our comment section.
