Sheriff, commission at odds over Scott County purchase

BENTON, Mo. -- A Scott County commissioner is accusing Sheriff Bill Ferrell of dodging state-mandated bidding practices to install a new heating and air-conditioning unit at the county jail.

At a meeting Tuesday, the commission refused to pay a bill for $9,730 from Sikeston, Mo., contractor Kenny Bridger for what the county says was an unauthorized and perhaps unnecessary service. They flatly refused an offer from Bridger's lawyer to settle the bill for less money.

Presiding Commissioner Martin Priggel said the commission only has Ferrell's word the air conditioner failed. He and other commissioners first learned of the problem when the bill arrived this month.

Ferrell, who was not at the meeting Tuesday, said later he was acting in the best interests of the county by quickly replacing the air conditioner and keeping the inmates and employees safe. He said his other option would have been to close the jail and relocate inmates at a cost of $1,350 per day.

"I don't know what the law is," Ferrell said. "I just know what we've done for years and years."

And Bridger is the contractor he's always used, he said.

The purchase was made without going through the state-mandated bidding process, which includes public notification, commissioner approval and the elected official's participation in obtaining bids. It's also customary to solicit at least three bids.

Ferrell said the issue stems from last winter's problems with the heat exchanger, a unit that both heats and cools depending on the season.

On Dec. 31, the heater quit, he said. Since it was a holiday, he called Bridger Heating and Air Conditioning. He said Bridger is the repairman the jail relies on in the middle of the night.

"They're the ones who've come at 2 and 3 a.m.," he said.

There was nobody else in town, Ferrell said, so Bridger contacted another out-of-town contractor for a competing bid and then did the work himself.

Ferrell said a faulty heat exchanger's fumes can be lethal, so he considered the repair an emergency.

Bridger told him the repair was only a temporary fix, Ferrell said, but indicated it could last until a new jail was built. The jail is under construction and scheduled to open next year.

But the repairs didn't last, said Ferrell. The unit failed in August amid temperatures over 100 degrees and, relying on the two bids he received in December, Ferrell hired Bridger to install a new unit.

No bid update

Commissioners said that's where the sheriff stepped out of line.

In this case, Bridger had requested a bid from his competition in December, and there was no attempt to update the information in August.

When the commissioners received the bill, they sought their own bids on the unit and installation for comparison -- one from Scott City, one from Oran and one from Sikeston. The first was $2,000 under and the other two were $2,500 under Bridger's bill.

Although there's a provision for waiving the regular bid process in emergency situations, there was a 12-day window between the bid date Aug. 9 and installation on Aug. 21.

Tuesday, Bridger's attorney, Jim Robison, appealed to the county commissioners to settle the issue out of court.

"They take the position that certain requirements were not met in the bidding process," Robison said. But that's not his client's fault, he said. "I hoped that some kind of solution could be worked out, but that didn't happen."

He said Bridger is willing to take a loss on the air-conditioning unit if it means the issue will be settled.

"I think there's a lot of political water over the dam that I think my client is caught up in," Robison said. "I'm not sure how it's going to play out."

Priggel said the commissioners will have to discuss what the next step will be, but it won't involve paying Bridger.

"We can't afford to pay even one dollar" for the work because that would imply approval, Priggel said, and having Bridger remove the unit and replace it with the old one could leave the county at risk of having the jail shut down by the sheriff.

"We just can't be wasting taxpayers' dollars," Priggel said.

Scott Welton of the Standard Democrat in Sikeston, Mo., contributed to this report.

abuchanan@semissourian.com

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