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A clout-heavy Chicago company with a history of alleged negligence and bribe-taking will be providing security at a public hospital until 2007. Digby's Security Services won the $4.5 million contract this month to provide guards at Cook County's Provident Hospital, 500 E. 51st St., and some suspect the company's political ties helped secure the lucrative work. County officials said there's nothing shady here and that they were unaware of the firm's past troubles. Regardless, they said they're sticking to their decision and won't be swayed by complaints that Digby's got the deal because the bidding process was "either intentionally or inadvertently directed in favor of one vendor." A rival of Digby's, Securitas Security Services, lodged a written complaint with the county after Securitas provided the lowest bid for the work but lost out to Digby's anyway when the job was re-bid. Digby's was the target of a similar complaint in 1987, after it won a substantial Chicago Housing Authority security contract over lower-bidding firms. Company owner Robert Digby didn't return repeated calls. In their complaint, Securitas officials conveyed "grave concern" about the way Digby won the Provident contract, saying it was not won in a "fair and balanced" atmosphere. County officials, however, stand behind the process. Caryn Stancik, spokeswoman for County Board President John Stroger, said "there are safeguards in place to protect the county taxpayers." Stroger supporters The Digby company and family have pumped thousands of dollars into the political campaigns of Stroger, his son Ald. Todd Stroger and their 8th Ward Democratic Organization as the company made millions off government contracts -- contracts that also have brought it troubles. The firm settled two of the highest-profile negligence lawsuits in CHA history: one involving Eric Morse, a boy thrown from a CHA high-rise in 1994, and one involving a child known as Girl X, who was found raped and beaten in a high-rise stairwell in 1997. In 1985, some Chicago Transit Authority board members wanted to cancel Digby's $600,000 contract amid staffing concerns. Two years later, Guardian Security filed a federal lawsuit, claiming the CHA changed requirements for its security contract until the bid was tailored to be won by Digby's. The CHA paid to settle that suit in 2000, the same year the Daley administration cut Digby's security contract at city tow yards after one of its guards admitted to taking bribes to release cars. County confident Securitas says sour grapes are not driving its complaints. "Obviously, Securitas believes that it should have been awarded the contract based upon its original bid," the company's letter to commissioners reads. "Nevertheless, Securitas believes that some measure should be taken to ensure that the contract is not awarded to a vendor who received an unfair advantage in the bidding process." County purchasing agent Ray Robin provided a line-by-line rebuttal to each of Securitas' concerns. He and others said they stand by the process that led to Digby's winning the contract for the Chicago hospital. Bids were opened in June. At the low end was $4.6 million from Securitas. The high bid was $6 million. The wide range concerned Robin and others, so Robin asked prosecutors to review the bid language. Officials decided wording about security equipment was too vague, so the county rejected the bids and called for a new batch. That "allowed everyone else to use Securitas' previous 'lowest bid' as a benchmark" for their new bids, the Securitas' letter says, and "effectively destroyed any competitive aspect to the process." But Robin says Digby's, as a local company, was within 2 percent of Securitas' bid and, with a 2 percent preference given to any bid submitted by a local business, Digby's likely would have won the contract on the first go-around. The second call resulted in bids with virtually no range, all landing around Digby's $4.5 million bid -- which Robin said verified the county's concern about earlier bid language. "The state's attorney guided us through the entire re-bid process," Stancik said. "Not withstanding that, Digby's would have been awarded the contract in either bid situation." Securitas is asking for a broader investigation of the county's contracting process.