09/20/2017 2 minute read

KANSAS CITY, Missouri (September 20, 2017) — A Burns & McDonnell review of selection committee documents released late Tuesday shows the City’s outside consultants misstated, misrepresented or completely ignored much of the information and supporting factual documentation presented in the KCI HOMETOWN Team’s 361-page proposal and qualifications document and interview.

“Our initial fact check has uncovered countless errors on the comparison document,” says Ron Coker, senior vice president, Burns & McDonnell. “In addition to the problem of not identifying our qualifications correctly, we see no evidence that any scoring took place, in accordance with city procurement rules.”

A response to the comparison document was submitted to the City today detailing several significant factual errors. For example:

The HOMETOWN Team’s experience on projects of $400 million or larger totals $40 billion, not $12 billion listed by the City’s outside consultants.

The HOMETOWN Team has worked with all major airlines and all airlines serving Kansas City, not two as listed by the City’s outside consultants.

The HOMETOWN Team has completed 4,050 aviation projects at 350 airports, not 35 airport projects as listed by the City’s outside consultants.

The HOMETOWN Team has worked on nearly 1,800 aviation architectural design projects, not two projects as listed by the City’s outside consultants.

The HOMETOWN Team made a commitment to use its own capital to start construction on November 8, 2017, not June 2018 as listed by the City’s outside consultants.

“As bad as this evaluation is, the fact that the City’s outside consultants did not contact one of Burns & McDonnell’s references provided for this once-in-a-generation project makes this evaluation even more disappointing. Husch Blackwell and Ameritas should refund the nearly $1 million it has charged the City for this failed process,” says Ron Coker, senior vice president.

In addition to discrepancies in the comparison document, a memo to the City Council recommending the Edgemoor team for the project misrepresented Dartmouth University’s Tuck School of Business under a section entitled: “Initiatives to benefit small, women and minority-owned businesses.” Dr. Frederick W. McKinney, director of the Tuck Minority Business Program, has sent an email to the City clarifying that his university’s program was not contacted by the Edgemoor team and did not make a commitment to work with Edgemoor team member, Clark Construction, as described in the recommendation memo.

“Every day we learn about another problem with this selection process. The time is now for the City Council to take control of this project and select the right team for Kansas City. It is never too late to correct a mistake. The City Council needs to correct this one.”

About Burns & McDonnell

Burns & McDonnell is a Kansas City-based firm that’s been committed to the people and growth of our hometown since we were founded in 1898. The 3,000 employee-owners based in Kansas City actively volunteer within the community and have donated millions of dollars to causes that support our great city from United Way to Science City. We are made up of more than 5,700 engineers, architects, construction professionals, scientists, consultants and entrepreneurs with offices across the country and throughout the world. We strive to create amazing success for our clients and amazing careers for our employee-owners. Burns & McDonnell is 100 percent employee-owned and is proud to be No. 16 on Fortune’s 2017 list of 100 Best Companies to Work For.