FEMA to review city fire equipment contract
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The Federal Emergency Management Agency will ask the city of Pittsburgh for documents explaining its $977,550 purchase of a firehouse ventilation system from an Ohio company with federal money and without a competitive process, agency officials said today.
The city is buying the system, made by Sweden-based Nederman Inc., from Toledo-area firm Clean Air Systems Inc. Two other vendors have complained that they were not given the opportunity to submit their own proposals, though FEMA -- which is paying $716,760 of the cost under an Assistance to Firefighters Grant -- demands "full and open competition" on all purchases made with its grants.
FEMA regularly reviews grants, and in this case will conduct "a full desk review," said Lisa Lewis, director of the agency's grants management division. "With the concerns [expressed by competing vendors] we'll take a closer look at it" than normal.
That will include a review of the city's procurement rules, of the contract with Clean Air Systems and of their consistency with five pages of federal rules on grants to states and local governments. The review is expected to take 90 days, and officials would not commit to making the results public.
Brian Cowan, program director for FEMA's Assistance to Firefighters Grants, said the agency approved of the city's plan to ventilate firehouses using systems that carry truck tailpipe exhaust out of firehouses, and automatically disengage when the truck leaves the building. "They submitted to us a request for funds. We reviewed that request. There was nothing improper in it."
But complaints like those voiced by Hempfield-based EMS Specialty Equipment, Cincinnati-based MagneGrip Group and their distributor Aire-Deb Corp. of Buffalo are "not very common," said Mr. Cowan.
The city picked Clean Air Systems from a state vendor list because it is the regional distributor for the Nederman system, which Public Safety Director Michael Huss and a firefighters union committee agreed was the best product. Federal rules encourage joint purchasing between state and local agencies, but bar numerous procedures that "unduly restrict competition," as the regulation puts it.
Ms. Lewis would not specify the possible outcomes of the review, other than to say they can range from no action to termination of a grant or an effort to recoup funds.
First Published March 16, 2009 4:22 pm
