Official Notice: County Rejected all 3 RFP Responses for Day Center?

Is this a staff decision? I don’t think so. This was a high priority for many of the County Board members and I think they might have something to say about it. Three years in a row . . . winter is coming, a permanent comprehensive day center has been promised – no more band-aids!

Here’s the official notice. DayCenterRFPresponse-GillmoreSHINE

From: “Saterfield, Tim”
To: “‘Sarah Gillmore (gillmore_s@yahoo.com)'”
Sent: Wednesday, August 7, 2013 1:51 PM
Subject: Day Center RFP

Hello Sarah:

I’ve attached a letter summarizing the status of the day resource center initiative. We’re going to take some time to look at our options considering neither site met the basic geographic criteria. Thanks for your interest and commitment.

Tim Saterfield
Dane County Department of Human Services
242-6532

August 7, 2013

Ms. Sarah Gillmore
Shine 608
c/o Tenant Resource Center
1202 Williamson Street
Madison, Wi. 53703

Dear Ms. Gillmore:

Thank you very much for your proposal, in response to Dane County RFP #113066, to operate a Day Resource Center for Dane County. Yours was the only proposal we received for this initiative.

As you may know, we received two proposals in response to the RFP for a site for the center, and neither location was within the geographic area we desired. One was too small based on the criteria we were looking for, and the price of one was beyond what had been budgeted.

In light of these considerations, at this time we are not going to pursue these sites, since the two proposals didn’t meet the criteria of the RFP. Since we don’t have a site at this time, we are not going to move forward with contracting for an operator.

We will be reviewing other options in the hopes of moving the day resource center forward.

Please let me know if you have any questions or need additional information.

Tim Saterfield
Communications and Operations Manager
Dane County Department of Human Services
242-6532

People keep asking me who to blame for this failing. My honest answer has to be that the County Board Supervisors did their part, they allocated the money and gave staff direction to do their jobs. This is failing on the administrative side of things. Joe Parisi is the County Executive, the buck stops there. Lynn Green (Dane County Human Services) and Laura Guyer (Real Estate) are the two key staff people involved in this – and they ultimately answer to Joe Parisi – tho they are also responsible. That is where I would look. I’m shocked that the staff have the ability to make this determination on their own, with no public discussion. Actually, I don’t think they do. But they seem to think they do. I do think the county board members might have something to say about that – I’d ask the county board supervisors what they will do to intervene and if they can please help us make this happen. Our community clearly needs this to happen. The legislative branch needs to step in and help do what the administrative branch has failed to do three years in a row.

If you’d like to share your opinion – here are the relevant emails.
County_Board_Recipients@countyofdane.com (include your address so they know whose constituent you are and be nice – they are our allies on this! until they are not . . . but I don’t think that is the case!)
parisi@countyofdane.com
Green@countyofdane.com

Rally: Tuesday, August 13, 6:00 steps of city-county building
Meeting: Tuesday, August 13, 6:30 3rd floor of city-county building
Facebook Event