The Plano Police Department must provide laboratory analysis of illicit drugs to the District Attorney for prosecution in drug cases. There are only three vendors capable of conducting these analyses in North Texas. The department has used all three of these vendors over the past few years to conduct these tests based on whoever had the lowest cost for a particular required test. Based on current trends and the increasing costs of these analyses, the department is expected to spend a minimum of $144,000 during 2021-22 for testing using the same process. The Department of Public Safety (DPS), who currently does some of our testing, has previously contracted with other agencies in Texas to conduct all of an agency’s drug testing in return for annual funding necessary to hire an additional chemist to do that agency’s cases. This is a much less expensive method of obtaining the necessary testing required by the District Attorney.
The department expressed an interest in this process and DPS submitted the attached.
The DPS agreement is to provide all Plano Police drug analysis requirements with a maximum 30 day turn-around. DPS has submitted a four year agreement with the first year cost of $108,673.25 due to the use of an advanced level chemist working our cases initially. During the first year of the agreement, they will hire and train another chemist at a lower salary to continue our agreement. The second year cost will drop to $92,911.50 escalating over the next three years to $108,673.25 in the fourth year with a total cost of $412,811.74 over the four year term. Armstrong Laboratories, our other current vendor conducting tests, was contacted and indicated they could not compete with that organizational model and would need to continue with their fee per test model. They will remain a back-up lab for those items where defense counsels request a second analysis.
If this agreement is not awarded, the Plano Police Department will continue to conduct the required drug analysis processes using the current vendors at a much higher cost. Even without an increase in drug enforcement, the increasing costs of analysis is estimated to cost an additional $163,188 over the next four years.
The City is exempt from the competitive bid process for this purchase as allowed by Texas Local Government Code Chapter 252 Subchapter B Section 252.002(a)(2). (City of Plano Internal Contract No. 2022-0156-I)