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Supervisors advance GTL award for inmate phone services amid protest from incumbent PCS
Summary
The subcommittee moved to forward a recommendation to award a three-year inmate telephone contract to GTL after a competitive RFP; incumbent Public Communication Services (PCS) protested the award, disputing controller audit findings that it owes millions.
The Budget and Finance Subcommittee on Tuesday advanced a recommendation to the full Board of Supervisors to award a three‑year inmate telephone services contract to GTL (GlobalLink) after a competitive solicitation, despite a formal protest from the incumbent, Public Communication Services (PCS). The Sheriff's Department said the contract would deliver a 60 percent commission to the department and roughly $913,000 in the first year.
Harvey Rose, the budget analyst, told the committee that the contract follows an RFP process and that the sheriff ranked GlobalLink as the top proposer. Rose said a prior sole‑source agreement with PCS, awarded in 1999 and extended through February 2010, did not come before the Board as required. "The controller's office found that PCS owed the sheriff's department up to $1,900,000," Rose said, and the sheriff's office has subsequently billed PCS for a larger amount.
Paul Jennings, chief executive of PCS, told the committee that his company has operated in California for 15 years without contract cancellations or material breaches and disputed the arrears finding. "Why at the eleventh hour are we being accused of owing $3,000,000 when in fact we have never ever received a single document from the city saying that we owe this money?" Jennings said, adding that PCS submitted regular reports to the department and that San Francisco's telephone environment differs substantially from other jurisdictions used as comparators in the RFP.
Mara Rosales, counsel for PCS, told the committee that the bid protest exposes an "egregious" scoring error in which the evaluation panel assigned up to 400 points in a category the RFP limited to 80. Rosales asked the committee to remand the award for re‑scoring by a new panel. "We submit the award to GTL is based on a faulty RFP and therefore can't stand," she said.
Committee members and staff said the city attorney's office and the contract administration bureau reviewed the protest and concluded it was without merit. The committee chair accepted a motion from Supervisor Sean Ellsburn to move the item forward with recommendation to the full board; no roll‑call vote is recorded in the transcript.
The committee also noted a technical correction: staff recommended a June 1, 2010, commencement date for the new contract rather than April 1.
The item will go to the full Board of Supervisors with the subcommittee's recommendation.
