After split votes, board extends All South disaster-management contract for three months and rejects current RFPs

The St. John the Baptist Parish School Board spent a substantive portion of its Dec. 12 meeting debating whether to extend its current Disaster Management Services contract with All South Engineering or award the work to another vendor.

Multiple substitute motions were offered and voted on. Early in the discussion the superintendent recommended extending All South for at least three to six months; trustees then considered motions to extend All South for six months and to allow the top three proposers to present to the full board. A motion to end debate failed on a 4-6 roll call. Subsequent substitute motions proposing partial extensions, split-award approaches and direct awards to Rostan Solutions all failed or lacked a second.

The final successful motion (moved by Burl, seconded by Morris) instructed staff to reject the current RFP submissions, extend All South's contract for three months and readvertise the solicitation within three months. That motion passed 7 yeas (Burl, Triche, Morris, DeFrancesch, Frizzell, Schum, Wallace), 3 nays (Holden, Mamou, Vicknair) and 1 absent (Mitchell-Williams).

Public comment on the item included remarks from Larry Oney of HGI, who addressed the board during the procurement discussion. The minutes record that the superintendent recommended an interim extension, and the board deliberated competing approaches: short-term extensions to preserve continuity on Hurricane Ida-related work, allowing additional proposer presentations, or moving forward with a new award.

The board action preserves the existing contractual relationship for three months while restarting the procurement process to solicit fresh proposals. The minutes show the series of failed substitute motions and the final roll-call outcome; no new vendor was awarded the primary disaster-management contract at the Dec. 12 meeting.