Meridian school district to re-do bids for copier contract

The largest school district in the state plans to restart the bidding process with copier companies for their services in November, nearly three months after recanting on a decision to award the contract to Xerox Corp.

An Idaho copier company filed a complaint in July with the Meridian School District, saying administrators turned down a contract that would have saved taxpayers $680,000 over five years.

Fisher’s Document Systems Inc. Chairman Gary Mahn said his Boise-based company bid about $32,417 per month to provide more than 120 copiers to the school district in southwest Idaho for 60 months.

The district instead picked the Connecticut-based Xerox Corp. and their proposal requesting $43,758 a month.

Fisher’s Document Systems filed a notice of objection with the district, saying the board that governs Meridian schools should have been more fiscally responsible with public money. The move forced the board to reconvene and decide if it wanted to respond to the objection or stick with its decision.

Board members agreed in August to restart the bidding process, and the district has since worked with a consulting company to fine-tune the new request for bids on the copier contract, said district spokesman Eric Exline.

“They guarantee that we will get lower bids than we got before,” Exline said.

A new proposal likely will go before the school board for consideration in January.

Xerox has provided copier services for Meridian schools since 2004, and the contract was scheduled to expire in October.

The district sent out a request for proposals earlier this year to provide copier services for its administrative offices and about 50 public schools expected to serve an estimated 34,000 students.

The district assembled a committee of four staff members to review proposals from four companies: Konica Minolta, IKON Office Solutions, Fisher’s Document Systems and Xerox.

All of the proposals were about $20,000 less a month than the district currently pays Xerox for copier services, Exline said, and the district is now spending more than it would have if a new contract had been awarded.

The new request for proposals expected to go out this month has been revamped to further save costs. “We expect that we will get proposals that will save us more than the $20,000 a month,” Exline said.