Stacking the Deck                                            June 2001

A few years back I worked as the assistant to the director for a state office responsible for managing capital construction projects. Some of my responsibilities were defined through a statute that required that contractors be qualified each year, through a fair and consistent process, to bid on large construction projects. The process required the submission of a 19-page form, on the basis of which the contractor would be placed on a list that was distributed to state agencies.

At the time, the office was under pressure to make the bidding process more open, particularly to minority owned companies. As a result, the office was inundated with dozens of forms each week. It was my job to process these forms and maintain an accurate, up-to-date list and then distribute the list.

The office was also responsible for assessing the state’s “controlled maintenance” needs, which included everything from toilets that wouldn't flush to unsafe elevators. The available funding for these projects was estimated at about 10% of what was needed each year. Accordingly, one of the director’s responsibilities was to increase funding by working with the capital development committee. This was primarily a technical responsibility insofar as the maintenance needs could be documented and prioritized according to their importance in the operation of state agencies. But there were also politics involved. The importance of the office, not to mention its funding, depended on the level of its responsibilities.

I received a call from the director who had been making his rounds on the road visiting facilities in remote parts of the state. He informed me that a contractor had sent us the qualification form and hoped to bid on a rather large capital construction project. He also informed me that the president of this particular company was a good friend of the local state representative, who happened to be on the capital development committee. His instructions to me were simple: “put the form on the top of the stack as soon as it arrives and get them on the list so that they can submit a bid.”

The dilemma was simple: should the contractor be moved to the top of the stack so that the office would be in good standing with the capital development committee? The tradeoff would be that several contractors would not be on the list and therefore remain ineligible to bid. This would make the process less accessible, deny otherwise qualified contractors the opportunity to bid, and violate the statutory responsibilities of the office.

I expressed my reservations about doing what he asked but the battery on his cell phone was going out so we didn't have time to discuss it. (Yes that really is what happened.) What to do? Should I have done what the director asked me to do? Should I have refused to take any action and confront the director? Should I resign?

--submitted by Jim Heichelbech (jheichelbech@mindspring.com), Graduate School of Public Affairs, University of Colorado at Denver