"The Official Portrait of Miss InDiana"

"The Official Portrait of Miss InDiana"
aka "Miss Victory"

Monday, February 11, 2008

Worthy roofing business that didn't get Washington Township work from Mervilde

This letter showed up in our mailbox last week. We asked permission to print it and it was granted provided we shielded the author's name. You see, Tremco Roofing, doesn't play fair.
Curiously enough, Dr. James Mervilde, superintendent of Washington Township Schools, sits on the Educational Service Center Board. --HFFT

1/27/2008

To whom it may concern:

The school corporation is buying Tremco roofing materials through the Educational Service Center, at costs 2-3 times that of other quality manufacturer’s, many located in the State of Indiana. The school corporation then takes bids for the labor, from several contractors. The hidden factor is that only Tremco contractors can bid, and the school board may not even know about the purchase of materials. They only see that 3-4 contractors bid.

Tremco is a very good company, but their products are very expensive, and their attempt to control the client and lock out the competition is well known in the roofing industry.

It was reported that Phil Smith, the facilities director for Washington Township Schools was flown by Tremco to Cleveland and wined and dined.

It is believed that all of the roofing undertaken by Washington township Schools during the past 4 years has cost Indiana taxpayers over $500,000.00. This would be the difference between the expensive Tremco products and other quality manufacturer’s.

Phil Smith would like everyone to believe they are competitively bidding their work, but in reality they are only Bidding Tremco across the board.

A roll of Firestone or Johns Manville modified is approximately $60.00/per roll. On the other hand a roll of Tremco modified is approximately $185.00/per roll. With the Service Center discount of 13.3% the price is lowered to $160.00/per roll. On a 50,000 square foot roofing project the cost difference amounts to $75,000.00 - $100,000.00 more for a Tremco Roof. Tremco builds other costs into the contractors bid, such as full time inspections. The owner never sees these items. Also the contractors love bidding Tremco because their profits double over ordinary roofing projects.

Sincerely,

(name withheld on request)
Business Development / Account Management

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Taking advantage of school boards by the roofing industry in Indiana is a long series of taxpayer rape. The AG ought to get involved in this or,maybe that new State Officer who is supposed to be looking into white collar crimes and procurement practices. Construction Managers often replace roofing on specious arguments that have nothing to do with useful remaining life but do have to do with cost plus contracts. Most "educators" are pretty clueless.

Anonymous said...

These clueless educrats are often getting paid more than the governor and mayor combined.

If they can't keep costs down and do simple tasks like gathering the lowest bid, then maybe they need to find other work.

We cannot afford these ineffective educrats on the taxpayer dole.

Anonymous said...

What you are looking at is sophistcated organized crime. When caught red handed in NH they sicced the AG after the whistleblower. Agents for the State of NH threatened to kill the whistleblower. The whistle-blower got prosecuted for recording members of organized crime threaten him with death and dismemberment. As one blogger put it. "This is madness gone mad!"

Google Gerard Beloin and get the rest of the story.