Chicago sole source emergency contract questioned

Chicago emergency officials skirted bidding rules on Motorola deal, city watchdog says

City officials circumvented competitive bidding rules to steer a $23 million digital-radio contract to Schaumburg-based Motorola, according to City Hall's top watchdog and documents obtained by the Tribune.

Inspector General Joseph Ferguson concluded that officials at Chicago's 911 center falsified paperwork to justify giving the contract to a preselected firm.

Office of Emergency Management and Communications officials said using Motorola would preserve "the city's prior investment of nearly $2 million" in Motorola equipment bought earlier. But the city actually paid only $350,000 for that equipment, according to Ferguson's report.

When investigators began asking questions, they had trouble determining "who was responsible, because of the debilitating combination at (emergency management) of high turnover, endemic finger-pointing, poor or nonexistent internal controls and missing paperwork," the report stated.

The agency justified not going through a formal bidding process in May 2005 when Ron Huberman was executive director. Huberman, a longtime lieutenant to Mayor Richard Daley who is now chief of the Chicago Public Schools, said Monday in a telephone interview that he led the department for only 13 months.

In a follow-up written statement, Huberman said he "was disappointed" that employees of his at the time did not follow proper procedure. "I regret that some of this misconduct occurred during my tenure," he said.

The request to award the contract without bidding was approved by the city's Sole Source Review Board, and Ferguson recommends in his report that the board's meetings be public. The Department of Procurement Services, which oversees that board, rejected that idea, the report states.