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Cook County Board committee members will be asked today to approve $9.3 million in seven construction-related contracts with no idea if other firms could have offered similar services for less.

The contractors were personally selected by county board President John Stroger without a competitive-bidding process. Four of the contractors have donated to Stroger's political campaigns.

"I don't just arbitrarily go out and appoint an architect," Stroger said. "Whether I know all these people or not, I have searched around for the best possible people."

Stroger said these are the best-qualified firms and he does not need competition to keep costs low.

"We always check the offers and what the going rate is in the industry," Stroger said. "I'm not going to go out and bid professional services contracts."

The county negotiates for a price based on its own estimates of the work, spokesman John Gibson said.

The seven contracts being debated today in the county's construction committee are for architectural, engineering and construction-management services in rehab projects at county hospitals, jails, courthouses and storage facilities. The contracts range in value from $379,900 to $3 million.

At a recent committee meeting, minority business owners complained the county doesn't spread around its work, often repeatedly dealing with the same firms.

Stroger said the county must deal with people it knows if it wants to get good service.

"We look for ... people who have dealt with governments," Stroger said. "There's lots of people who say they can do professional services, but you hire them, they fail, and you have no way of dealing with it."

Stroger said the county "sends out notices" when it has work for professional firms, but Gibson said the only companies to receive requests for proposals are the ones Stroger already has chosen.

By contrast, suburban governments often follow a state statute that requires local governments to advertise their project in a newspaper and get competitive proposals.

Orland Park village manager R.J. Zeder said he believes open competition forces firms to keep their costs under control and offer better service.

Gibson said the state law doesn't apply to the county.

Pressure has increased in recent months on Chicago and Illinois state government to cut the influence political donations appear to have on who gets government contracts.

Despite a recent battle between Stroger and dissidents over the county's $3 billion budget, Stroger continues to award professional services contracts to political friends and donors.

Some of the contractors up for review today have donated as much as $18,400 to Stroger's campaign.

"I'm not giving out any professional services contracts just because someone ever offered or made a donation to any campaign I was ever involved in," Stroger said.

The Better Government Association, a good-government watchdog group, said professional services contracts are increasingly being used to sidestep bidding rules set up in the 1970s. Those rules require purchasing and construction contracts to go to the lowest qualified bidder.

But the law allows more flexibility when a government is choosing a professional services contract, which originally affected mostly lawyers and accountants.

"The theory with professional services is that you're not really comparing apples to apples, people offer different levels of service," executive director Jay Stewart said. "Lo and behold, those receiving professional services contracts tend to be political friends, prominent campaign contributors and supporters."

More and more, Stewart said, most government construction projects in Illinois include additional money for a consultant who is chosen by political leaders rather than through a competitive bid.

"You have to wonder, especially with (Cook) County, whether any of it is necessary or if it's just pinstripe patronage."