A temporary staffing company fired back after being locked out of a $1.8 million contract with Chattanooga city government.
For three weeks the Chattanooga City Council grappled over whether to include MSi Workforce Solutions in a blanket contract for short-term staffing needs in various departments.
Key concerns discussed by the council involved whether Chattanooga’s Department of Purchasing created a level playing field for competing vendors, the time the company has operated, and the personal bankruptcies of MSi husband-and-wife principals J. Marty and Donna Christian Lowe.
On Sept. 26, the council voted 7-2 to remove MSi from the staffing contract, leaving Outsource Staffing as the sole vendor. Outsource Staffing has been a city contractor since 2006. Last week, the council let a motion to reconsider MSi’s inclusion die instead of voting on it.
“It is with great disappointment that MSi Workforce Solutions LLC, a minority-owned firm, has not been allowed a fair opportunity to provide temporary staffing services to the City of Chattanooga, as decided by some members of the Chattanooga City Council,” company president J. Marty Lowe said in a statement.