Construction company Kiewit is protesting the V.I. Public Finance Authority’s recent decision to award up to $378,481,860 to Persons Services Corp. for design-build services on St. Croix, noting that their own bid put pre-construction costs at $143 million less than the amount awarded to Persons.
“Over the past several weeks, Kiewit has become increasingly concerned about VIODR’s selection and award for this Project,” a company representative wrote in an April 22 letter viewed by the Source. “These concerns include, but are not limited to, the bonding capacity of other proposers, VIODR not following or adhering to the RFP scoring and selection criteria, and awarding a contract that is not compliant with the requirements of the RFP.”
Kiewit claimed the government solicited bids “for what is clearly a multi-billion-dollar project to reconstruct the Territory’s critical water, wastewater, electrical utilities and associated roadways.”
“However,” the company continued, “the award being considered by the PFA Board is for a completely different and much smaller scope of work and a cost that is inconsistent with the bid sheet provided with the RFP.”
Kiewit argued that awarding such a contract wasn’t just unfair — it could run afoul of federal procurement requirements.
“Doing so may very well jeopardize the federal funding for hurricane recovery, which is critically needed to restore the Territory’s dilapidated infrastructure,” according to the letter.
The protest marks at least the second time a company has questioned the V.I. Public Finance Authority and Disaster Recovery Office’s procurement practices since the Virgin Islands Government began issuing multimillion-dollar procurement “bundles” under its Rebuild USVI initiative.
Construction firm Hill International sued the government in September after the PFA awarded a three-year, $137 million contract to manage the territory’s disaster recovery effort. Hill’s bid came in at just under $30.3 million, a disparity “so great as to make the award to [rival bidder] CH2M arbitrary and capricious,” according to the complaint.
A federal magistrate judge recommended dismissing Hill’s claims, writing in March that he was unconvinced by Hill’s argument that the award was improper because it went through the PFA and not the government’s Property and Procurement Department.
“In sum, it is purely speculative whether the award to CH2M instead of Hill … can be fairly traced to PFA, and not [Property and Procurement], conducting the procurement,” U.S. Magistrate Judge G. Alan Teague wrote, adding that Hill was simultaneously arguing that the PFA lacked statutory authority to award the contract and that the PFA should have awarded the contract to Hill because its bid price was lower.
Hill objected to the judge’s report and recommendations in April, arguing that it “is well-accepted that a plaintiff is permitted to plead alternative theories of liability and relief that are inconsistent with one another.”
“Hill has challenged this procurement decision on four different grounds, and its prayer for relief can include relief that is applicable to one ground but not another,” the company’s attorneys wrote.
