You have to give it to Pennsylvania Governor Ed Rendell. Not only does he deny any wrong-doing in handing out no-bid contracts in Harrisburg, he defends himself by telling WHYY’s Marty Moss-Coane that his administration steered a contract to a bidder he preferred while he was Philadelphia’s mayor.

Here’s what he said on Radio Times:

When I was mayor of the city of Philadelphia. We brought in a company to clean city hall. They did an incredible job. We asked them to hire and train formerly homeless men. They did a great job training them. And those men performed brilliantly. It came time because the city had a strict code, we had to bid the contract. And the only way I could uh ensured that this company continued. Was that we had to manipulate the bid documents in a way that it gave and incumbent the knowledge of how to bid better because the incumbent was doing it. Now…

MMC: Is that legal?

Yeah, absolutely legal. You can frame the documents anyway you can. But it was absurd. Of course that company should have continued. They did everything we asked. They used formerly homeless men and they trained them well. It’s so frustrating

It almost doesn’t matter whether that’s legal. Doesn’t it violate the intent of competitive bidding, which is designed to keep costs down and squash sweetheart deals? And, once a company has secured a contract, periodic bidding can keep prices low and quality high.
To be fair, Rendell is trying to say that the bidding process can be waste of everyone’s time when you’re getting good service from your current provider.

This example came up as Rendell was defending his record on awarding no-bid contracts on the state level. Yesterday, the State’s Auditor General Jack Wagner released a report that suggested that Deloitte Consulting L.L.P received alot of work under questionable circumstances. FYI: Wagner is considered a likely Democratic candidate for Governor next year.

Rendell said his administration had nothing to hide. He said that Deloitte did great work and even saved the state alot of money. Rendell on WHYY said  if anyone looked into the contracts closer they would see that and that it would be clear as to why Deloitte won multiple contracts.

Click here to listen to the full one-hour interview. The section he discusses the no bid contracting is around -17:00 on the counter. (the last 17 mins of the interview)

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