Government Accountability Office investigates Green Bay causeway award

By Marie Rohde

Allegations of irregularities in the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ award of a Green Bay project to build a causeway for more than three times the price of the low bidder’s offer are under investigation, according to the Government Accountability Office.

“A protest was filed challenging the award,” said Ralph White, GAO administrator. “The Army Corps owes (the protestor) and all taxpayers an explanation of what led to the decision.”

Greg Joski, the low bidder on the project to build an 850-foot temporary road to Renard Island, filed a protest Oct. 12 asking that the award be invalidated. Joski, owner of PTS Contractors Inc., Green Bay, offered to complete the project for $684,000. The only other bidder, Advance Construction Inc., offered to do the job for $761,000.

The bids were discarded because the project had been set aside for a business located in a HUBZone, a geographic area where disadvantaged businesses are located and given preference for federal contracts.

The Army Corps negotiated a $2,423,336 contract with Nuvo Construction Co. Inc., Milwaukee. Nuvo did not bid on the project. Jorge Lopez, company president, and Scott Farina, project manager, did not return calls.

READ A COPY OF THE WRITTEN PROTEST

Lynn Duerod, a spokeswoman for the Army Corps, said her agency would not comment on the project because of the quasi-judicial proceeding.

In his written protest asking that the award be invalidated, Joski pointed to a number of what he described as irregularities in the process.

• He claimed that Nuvo, a company with 10 or fewer employees, was not required to submit a bid bond of 20 percent of its bid amount, as bidders were.

• Noting that the negotiated amount of Nuvo’s bid was just 4 percent less than the government estimate of $2,527,962 — a sum neither of the two bidders was aware of — Joski asserted that Nuvo was told about the estimate before bidding.

• He claimed that the Army Corps had based its project cost estimate on a single, five-minute call to a Wisconsin contractor.

• Joski questioned how Nuvo, a company that lists between $1.5 million and $2 million in business, could obtain a performance bond for the project. He requested the name of the bonder.

• The Army Corps bid notice required that the bidder perform a portion of the work. Joski said Ostrenga Excavating Inc., Green Bay, was performing the contract work for $1 million. Ostrenga did not return calls for comment.

• Nuvo’s price for shot rock was listed at $48.07 per ton compared with Joski’s bid of $14 per ton. He questioned why Nuvo’s price for a basic commodity was so much higher.

• Nuvo’s bid includes more than $417,000 to move equipment to and from the site, about two-thirds of Joski’s bid for the entire project.

Joski also questioned the Army Corps’ assertion that the corps would be harmed if the contract work were suspended. The Army Corps has used the 55-acre Renard Island as a disposal site for material dredged from local rivers, much of it contaminated sediment. The causeway is being built to enable trucks to access the island and cap the dump site. It eventually will be given to Green Bay or Brown County, probably for recreational use.

Joski, noting that the dump has been uncapped for years, said the Army Corps should not be in such a rush to complete the project.

Despite the protest — and requests from Green Bay Mayor Jim Schmitt and U.S. Rep. Steve Kagen — the project will not be halted pending the GAO investigation.

“The construction will commence soon,” said Duerod, who said the agency followed the law in making the decision.

Joski called the award and the process outrageous and vowed to continue fighting the system.

“This is a perfect example of taxpayer money being wasted at a time when we can least afford it,” he said.