How cost was scored in the controversial state WiFi contract…

I am still sorting through the documents I received from the State Department of Education on the scoring of the nine bidders on the state’s multi-year, multimillion-dollar high school WiFi contract, but here’s a link to the overall scores for each of the 10 bids in the three equally weighted areas, cost, company overview/experience, and technology; and here’s a link to the breakdown on the cost scoring . If the cost scoring seems a little obscure, here’s why: Points were designated based on a formula. That’s why the highest bid, for more than $40 million over five years from Carousel, got a score of 1,915 out of the possible 2,500 points, or 76 percent; while the lowest bid of $8.3 million over five years, from Tek-Hut Inc. of Twin Falls, got a score of 2,381, which is 95 percent of the available points. (Tek-Hut submitted two bids; that’s why there are 10 bids from the nine companies.) The second-most expensive bid, from Compu-Net at $30 million over five years, got a 2,067 cost score, or 83 percent.

Here’s the formula:

1-(5-year Individual Bid/5-Year Total of All Bids) x 2,500 possible points = Total Score for Costs