Richland County rejects roads bidder because of past penny tax issues
The fallout from Richland County’s penny tax issues is now stopping one firm from working on road construction in the county, and may stop other companies from bidding on future projects.
On Tuesday, Richland County Council voted 6-2 to reject a bid from Brownstone Construction Group to provide services for a penny tax road project. Three council members abstained.
Brownstone, a Columbia-based firm, was previously part of the management team hired to oversee Richland County’s penny-tax program, an arrangement that ended with acrimonious accusations and withheld payments last November.
Brownstone was the top bidder for a contract to provide construction, engineering and inspection services for ongoing work on North Main Street, part of the county’s ongoing penny tax roads program. But after a long discussion, council members voted to bypass Brownstone and go with the second-place bidder, OLH Inc.
Brownstone was a member of the Program Development Team that oversaw the penny program for five years until this past November, when the contact was not renewed amid disputes over the PDT’s spending. Richland County voted to end the contract, expecting to save around $4 million a year by moving the program in house.
County council then voted to hold back its final two months’ payment to PDT, hoping to use it as leverage to compel the companies to repay some disputed payments. The companies are now in legal remediation with the county over those payments.
The $1 billion penny program has faced spiraling costs that threaten whether all the projects approved by voters in a 2012 referendum will still get done. A preliminary audit of the program by the S.C. Department of Revenue found $40 million was misspent on items such as office supplies and cars for the PDT that was not permitted by the referendum.
Councilman Joe Walker argued no private company would continue to give new business to a firm with which it was simultaneously in a legal dispute. He told The State he plans to make a motion to codify that policy at a future meeting.
“I continue to be dismayed that common business practices seem very foreign to some of my colleagues,” Walker said. “I will fight, yell and scream until we adhere more closely to practices in the business world, rather than the questionable decisions that have been made and continue to be made.”
Walker also pointed to concerns about whether Brownstone is properly licensed to do the work. Walker told council members he’s been told Brownstone is under investigation for using a license issued to a Richland School District 1 employee with little involvement with the company, as The State previously reported.
Brownstone told The State last month the license is irrelevant to any work it would have done for the penny program, and an attorney for the firm said the license is not needed for the contract Brownstone bid for this time. He said he is unaware of any investigation related to the issue.
Company president Dale Collier told The State in a statement the council’s decision goes against the recommendation of county staff who approved and reviewed the bid.
“Brownstone provided documents to the County refuting the licensing ‘allegations’ raised in The State and mentioned during the meeting last night,” Collier said. “Brownstone has at all times held the proper licenses for performing its construction management services.
“It appears that the Council has concluded wrongdoing on our part despite no evidence whatsoever to support such a position. Brownstone is reviewing its options in light of this highly unusual departure from standard procurement practices.”
Councilman Jim Manning argued Brownstone had offered the best deal on this particular bid, and the county did not have a policy to bypass them because of an unrelated dispute.
“Council hadn’t made that decision, and our ordinance and policy did not address that,” Manning said. “It opens up a lot of discriminatory factors if we just decide we’re not going to give bids to people... Some council members talk about ‘fairness,’ but our actions don’t line up with the rhetoric.”
In the end, Walker voted with Calvin Jackson, Bill Malinowski, Dalhi Myers, Chakisse Newton and Allison Terracio. Manning and Paul Livingston voted against. Joyce Dickerson, Yvonne McBride and Gwen Kennedy all abstained from the vote, citing concern about how it would impact legal negotiations with the company.
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