Alternative Opportunities wins two more license offices

Less than a month after having 10 of its state license offices put up for rebid due to incomplete bid information, a Springfield-based nonprofit has won the bidding process for two new offices.

Alternative Opportunities Inc. is the new agent for license offices in Carthage and Farmington, the Missouri Department of Revenue said Dec. 31. The organization's bids state that the company will return 5 percent of revenues from each office back to the state. In both cases, the incumbent agent did not bid to retain the office, and both offices will remain in their current locations.

"Alternative Opportunities was confident that our bids were competitive, and we are looking forward to serving the citizens of Carthage, Farmington and their surrounding communities," AO spokesman Reggie McElhannon said in an e-mail to Springfield Business Journal. McElhannon also said that employees will remain in place.

AO, which provides employment and individualized living services to the developmentally disabled, had been awarded 10 other license offices in 2009.

Those offices were put up for rebid after the revenue department determined AO's bids were incomplete. Bidders had been told that they couldn't use subcontractors to provide main services in the license office, but the contract manager proposed by AO was actually being paid by a Tucson, Ariz.-based company.

AO spokesman McElhannon told SBJ in December that the issue came from listing CFO Tom Goss as the contract manager, even though his salary is actually paid by Tucson-based WD Management. McElhannon also said that AO will rebid for the 10 license offices with a different employee as office manager on subsequent bids.

Local license offices provide services under direction from the state Department of Transportation but are managed by local independent contractors.