Competitive Bidding for Paint Jobs May Cost Faculty 'A Bit More Money'

A new Faculty policy stipulating that all painting jobs expected to cost more than $500 must be subject to competitive bidding may cost the Faculty "a bit more money," Stephen S.J. Hall, vice president for administration, said yesterday.

Under the new policy the maintenance staff will charge the Faculty whatever it bids and will not return money if the job costs less than the bid.

Before the policy went into effect last month, there was no strict lower limit at which competitive bidding would begin. Buildings and Grounds employees handled almost all paint jobs costing little more than $500, Hall said.

Francis A. Lawton, assistant for facilities in the office of the dean of the Faculty, said yesterday that the Faculty decided to set the limit in order to get its maintenance work done as inexpensively as possible."

"Now that the maintenance crews have to be competitive they will have to sharpen their pencils to get lower," Lawton said.

Painting usually costs the Faculty $1 million a year Leshe E. Thomas manager of utilities for B & G said yesterday.

Half-Paint

Paint jobs currently amount to 50 per cent of the Faculty's non-mechanic maintenance budget.

Hall said he predicts that the policy will "erode and fall by the wayside." He said that outside contractors may obtain more Harvard contracts at first, "but in time they will give them to us."

David A. Jones, superintendent of facilities in B & G said yesterday that the procedure has not been completely implemented and figures on increased costs are not available.

He said that B & G will now accept three to four scaled bids besides its own on each of the printings jobs.

"If we run out of bids then we may have to make another decision," Jones said. "But we should be able to win a few jobs with this. We are not stafled to take the whole painting load anyway."