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Office Depot wins NC supply contract again
Office Depot wins state supply deal ,Low bidder’s protest spurs $900,000 drop in value of contract
RALEIGH
– State officials awarded a new office supplies contract to Office
Depot Thursday, an agreement in which the company dropped its price by
about $900,000 a year from its current deal.The discount comes more
than eight months after an administrative law judge ruled that the
state improperly awarded the current contract to Office Depot. The
judge was ruling on a protest by Corporate Express, a lower-bidding
company whose bid was $1.8 million a year lower than Office Depot on
the current contract.State officials, referring to a “technical
ambiguity” in the bidding process for the current contract, said Office
Depot provided the lowest cost on the new agreement.Hampton Dellinger,
a lawyer for Corporate Express, said the company was reviewing the new
contract award but believes its actions helped save taxpayers nearly $1
million a year.”Corporate Express is obviously pleased that its
successful protest of the original bid process revealed the problems
that led to the re-bid,” said Dellinger, a candidate for the Democratic
nomination for lieutenant governor.The state signed a new two-year deal
for essentials such as paper clips and ink cartridges with Office Depot
for nearly $17.4 million a year. In the current contract, Office
Depot’s bid was about $18.2 million.In last spring’s protest by
Corporate Express, Administrative Law Judge Beecher “Gus” Gray said the
state could have saved $1.8 million by awarding the contract to
Corporate Express. He criticized as “kind of bogus” a point-scoring
system the state used that awarded points to Office Depot for operating
retail stores without factoring in the cost and liability of employees
leaving work to buy supplies.Gray also said the consultant the state
hired to help award the contract, Accenture, did not disclose that
Office Depot was one of its clients. Office Depot has paid Accenture
$30 million over the past three years for software and merchandising
help.The Department of Administration was not bound by Gray’s ruling
that the state could save money by using Corporate Express. Officials
instead re-bid the contract.
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