The Mercedes ISD Board of Trustees voted to hold off on selecting a security service provider Thursday because administration had neglected to check references for the three companies who submitted bids for the contract.
Edwardo Gonzales, the district’s purchasing director, said “due to the timeframe” he’d been unable to check references.
Board President Oscar Hernandez noted that administration also neglected to do reference checks when the board considered security companies last year.
The district goes out for bids for security services on an annual basis, and a handful of scandals related to safety and security preceded last week’s discussion.
Last month police arrested a security guard at Mercedes High School employed by MLG Protection Services for allegedly making repeated threats and causing a bomb scare.
Those threats were part of a wave of threats at schools across the Rio Grande Valley that followed the shooting at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde.
The district’s superintendent has also been accused of not cooperating with police, allegations she denies. Last week the board placed Superintendent Carolyn Mendiola on leave following her arrest for allegedly interfering in a sexual misconduct investigation.
Finally, at least five district employees have been arrested on a variety of charges in a little over a year’s time.
It seemed all that was enough to make trustees want to take a look at those references.
“We do need to be through,” Trustee Lucy Delgado said. “With everything that has been — everything that we’ve gone through — you know, we can’t leave it to chance, we have to be very thorough.”
Delaying the decision may, legal counsel said, affect rankings for the companies. Trustees urged administration to bring the item back quickly.
The district currently has around 36 security guards: 21 from MLG Protection Services out of Mission and about 15 from Kentucky-based L4 Security Group.
Administration recommended the board award the security guard contract to L4.
“We outperform the competition by giving our clients the advantage of having better technology, receiving a superior level of background screening and security services, and offering a top-shelf customer service on every assignment,” the company’s website reads.
The district’s other current security services provider, MLG, has a rather obvious hindrance to getting the bid: one of their guys was accused of calling in a bomb threat last month.
MLG, which currently serves over half-a-dozen educational systems in the Valley, said this week that the individual accused of making the threats at Mercedes High is no longer with the company. In a statement, MLG said it thoroughly vetted that man before his hire and that he’d received no complaints from MISD staff about his performance.
Owner Armando Garza also wrote that the company is beefing up pre-employment screening in the wake of the arrest.
“I am very passionate at what I do, and due to this incident we are now implementing a pre-employment Personality/Emotional Questionnaire,” he wrote. “Accompanying the questionnaire, we will require personal references we can contact regarding any potential employee at the time of hire, in hopes that a situation like this never occurs again. We have over 300 security officers currently working for MLG, and we take pride in our company, and stand by our brand. Again, we sincerely apologize for this alleged isolated incident, and want you to trust that the safety of the students and staff has always been and will remain our highest priority.”
