Idaho schools broadband contract may be headed for rebid
BOISE – Idaho officials are scrambling to find a way to keep the statewide broadband network that serves high schools running after a judge tossed out the 5-year-old, $60 million contract for the service on Monday.
The head of Syringa Networks, the company that sued over the contract and won, is calling for a rebid. House Speaker Scott Bedke said that’s likely where the state is headed. But in the meantime, he said, emergency efforts are needed so school kids taking distance courses on the network aren’t interrupted in the midst of the school term.
“This is about the kids’ education,” Bedke said Wednesday. “The judge has pointed out some problems, obviously. But we’re in the middle of a school year.”
Officials from the state Department of Administration, the Legislature, the governor’s office and others were meeting about the issue on Wednesday. “We’re working on a path to ensure that this distance learning continues around the state,” Bedke said.
Jon Hanian, spokesman for Gov. Butch Otter, said, “They’re still evaluating the decision and then determining the path forward.”
The network remained in place Wednesday, according to administration department spokeswoman Jennifer Pike, even though a judge voided the contract between the state and Education Networks of America and Qwest, now known as CenturyLink.
Mike Gwartney, director of the administration department in 2009, awarded the contract to two groups of bidders: ENA and its partner Syringa Networks, and Qwest and its partner Verizon. The ENA/Syringa bid was the highest-rated.
Gwartney then amended the contract to cut Syringa out of the deal. Syringa then sued.
Greg Lowe, CEO of Syringa, said in a statement Wednesday: “While Syringa Networks is supportive of the IEN, it pursued this action to prevent vendors such as ENA and CenturyLink from improperly benefiting from an unfair procurement process at the expense of Idaho’s taxpayers.”
He added, “With the District Court’s recent opinion, Syringa Networks remains hopeful that the Department of Administration will recognize that this litigation, funded by taxpayer dollars, was a wasteful attempt to ‘fix what cannot be fixed,’ and move forward to rebidding the IEN procurement.”
State campaign finance records show the companies involved donated money to politicians.
ENA gave $18,250 to Otter’s campaigns since 2006, including $5,000 in September. Qwest gave even more over the same time period: $35,000. The company made its donations through its political action committee, CenturyLink Idaho PAC, formerly Qwest Idaho PAC.
Syringa Networks, the company that won the lawsuit over the contract, gave $2,000 to Otter’s campaign in 2008. But in 2010, it donated $5,000 to the campaign of Keith Allred, Otter’s Democratic opponent that year. And this April it donated $5,000 to the campaign of Sen. Russ Fulcher, who ran against Otter in the GOP primary.