The state attorney general’s office is investigating the town of Oak Bluffs’s bidding processes in connection with contractors’ work done at the old library, the town harbor, and a wastewater project connecting the high school, YMCA and community services to the town sewer line, Oak Bluffs town counsel Ron Rappaport revealed at Tuesday’s selectmen’s meeting.

“[Town administrator Michael Dutton] is the chief procurement officer but department heads as well are engaging in bidding practices, and I think there is not sufficient familiarity with some of the changes that have come in the past couple years,” Mr. Rappaport said.

Mr. Dutton said the electrical work should have been put out to a competitive bid.

After the meeting he explained the deficiencies in the town’s bidding process. “There was an assumption on the part of the department heads that Powers Electric was the ‘town electrician’ based on a rate quotes, and so they used Powers for the work, after getting appropriate quotes from Powers,” he said. “Since the wastewater project exceeded the bid threshold, it should have gone to separate bid. The harbor work was under the bid threshold, so it is fine as long as we solicited three quotes, which I do not believe we did. Again, the assumption was that Powers was the town electrician. Bottom line is that we did not do the bid process correctly.”

Mr. Dutton said the state has requested copies of several invoices for the electrical work.

Mr. Rappaport recommended, and selectmen approved, inviting a bidding and procurement expert to hold a work session with Mr. Dutton and the department heads.

“That would be an extremely useful,” said Mr. Dutton.

Mr. Rappaport said he was reluctant to speculate on whether the town would be penalized for its procurement deficiencies.