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Board delays vote on school key-card system, asks superintendent to compare top bidders
Summary
After an extended presentation and extensive board questioning about warranties, indemnity language and costs, the Clintondale board tabled action on a recommended Flying Locksmiths bid for a key-card access system and unanimously instructed the superintendent to provide a comparison between Flying Locksmiths and a lower-cost bidder (BAE Networks) ahead of a June 24 vote.
The Clintondale Board of Education on Monday tabled a decision on a proposed key-card access system and asked the superintendent to produce a written comparison of the recommended vendor and at least one lower-cost competitor.
Director of Buildings and Grounds Laura Lonczak told the board that the district ran a formal RFP for card-access upgrades, held a mandatory walk-through attended by a dozen vendors and received six formal bids. Lonczak said Flying Locksmiths emerged as the recommended vendor because of features and service terms staff considered important, including an image-capture feature for credential presentation, lifetime warranties on some controllers/readers and biannual maintenance options. She also said the work would be paid from a state safety and security grant rather than the district's general fund.
Board members pressed staff on multiple technical and legal points: the exact security-grant amount and remaining balance, which the superintendent later identified as $313,350.05; whether manufacturer warranties and the vendor's indemnification language protected the district as written; the scope and length of labor warranties (Lonczak said installers provide a roughly 90-day labor warranty while some hardware carries longer manufacturer warranties); and the bidder's pricing for emergency service calls and ongoing maintenance.
A public commenter who identified himself as a representative of BAE Networks, one of the bidders, told the board his company had submitted a complete bid and said it could meet nearly all the district's stated needs at roughly $35,000 less than the recommended proposal.
Given the outstanding legal and warranty questions and the close dollar differences between proposals, the board voted to postpone a final award until its June 24 meeting. The board also directed the superintendent to gather the warranty and contract documents, make all bid packages available for board inspection, and provide a side-by-side comparison of Flying Locksmiths and BAE Networks for the board's review.
The superintendent said he would add the questions posed at the meeting to his weekly update and make bid documents available for board members to examine in the administration office. The district emphasized that the card-access work was part of a broader safety package that also includes a night-lock system, PA upgrades and the SRO salary and that unused grant funds would expire if not obligated by the grant deadline.
