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There Was a Rational Bases for Fire District Board of Commissioners’ Rejection of Petitioner’s Bid to Supply a Radio Dispatch System—Court Cannot Substitute Its Own Judgment for the Board’s

The Second Department determined the respondent board (fire district commissioners) had a rational basis for rejecting petitioner’s bid for a radio dispatch system. As long as a rational basis for an administrative decision exists it must be upheld.  A court may not substitute its own judgment:

General Municipal Law § 103(1) provides that, in awarding any contract in excess of $35,000, public entities must award the contract to “the lowest responsible bidder.” “The central purposes of New York’s competitive bidding statutes are the (1) protection of the public fisc by obtaining the best work at the lowest possible price; and (2) prevention of favoritism, improvidence, fraud and corruption in the awarding of public contracts'”… . Nevertheless, it is a municipality’s right to determine whether a bid meets its specifications, and that determination is entitled to deference if it is supported by “any rational basis” … . Thus, ” a court may not substitute its judgment for that of the board or body it reviews unless the decision under review is arbitrary and unreasonable and constitutes an abuse of discretion'” … . It is the petitioner’s burden to demonstrate that a bid has been wrongly awarded … .

Here, the board identified three reasons for rejecting the petitioner’s bid: (1) the petitioner did not demonstrate that it had a service location within 20 miles of the fire district; (2) the petitioner offered to supply equipment which differed from the bid specifications; and (3) over the life of the contract, the monthly maintenance costs would render the petitioner’s bid more expensive than Eastern’s. Although the petitioner disagrees with the board’s conclusions as to each of these points, any one of them would provide a rational basis for the rejection of the petitioner’s bid. Matter of Hello Alert, Inc. v East Moriches Fire Dist., 2015 NY Slip Op 05189, 2nd Dept 6-17-15

 

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