The president of a Lehigh Valley water treatment company that lost three Lehighton Area School District vendor contracts over the last year told the school board Monday night “something is rotten in Denmark” concerning the switch.

LeRoi Yaffey of NuChem Corp said his company, which lost contracts at the elementary and middle schools in June 2023 to Tustin Water Solutions, was asked to put a bid in for the high school on June 7 only to learn Tustin had also been awarded that contract on May 28.

“It’s very concerning,” Yaffey said. “There were some disparaging things said about our company in one of these school board meetings in the past. I just couldn’t believe the things that were said.”

When NuChem’s service contracts were up at the elementary and middle schools last year, LASD Building and Grounds Director Justin Smith advocated for the switch to Tustin.

“Dealing with NuChem, we had some good things and bad things,” Smith said during a June 2023 workshop meeting. “There were instances when they said they were sending technicians out and technicians were not coming out. One of our cooling towers was supposed to be treated and was never treated. My recommendation is this would be the time to change.”

Smith told the board that the Tustin representative he was working with was a former employee for NuChem.

“I know the guy personally,” Smith said last year. “He was the one handling our work for NuChem. When he was let go, our service went downhill.

At that time, Tustin submitted a quote calling for quarterly payments of $905 versus NuChem’s $954. In May, Lehighton awarded Tustin the high school contract for $798.75 per quarter.

The agreement calls for the company to provide one scheduled service visit per month, supply and deliver all treatment chemicals necessary to treat the systems and maintain a chemical inventory sufficient to ensure uninterrupted treatment., monitor and adjust chemical feed equipment to maintain proper chemical levels, give an on-site water analysis of all systems online, and provide a complete field service report with test results and review recommendations with building management at the time of each visit.

On Monday, Yaffey said NuChem’s most recent quote for the high school was much lower than Tustin. He also alleged the district had not paid his company for any 2023-24 work.

“We don’t understand it,” he said. “We sent a number of invoices in and never got any response. There is also equipment we installed in the high school that we have not been paid for. The question is why. There is no conversation that comes back to us.”

Yaffey questioned the district’s bidding process and who sees the bids that come in.

“I would hope that when bids are opened that it isn’t just one person opening a bid,” interim superintendent Jack Corby said. “That would be bad business.”

Corby, who stepped into the role earlier this month, vowed to meet with Yaffey to help iron out the situation.

“I would hope things are different now,” Yaffey said, “but seeing some of the things that were said about us, that was very disturbing to me.”