More than a month after federal immigration agents arrested 31 suspected illegal immigrants working as janitors at the state’s six courthouses, many questions about the workers and the companies that employed them — TriState Enterprises and Falcon Maintenance — remain unanswered.

What are the names of those arrested? How many employees from the two companies were working in the 48 other state buildings the companies had contracts to clean? And how did the two companies get the contracts, even when competitors — some with national client lists — offered to do the jobs for less money?

For six weeks following the July 15 arrests, the Carcieri administration did not make public documents that might answer many of the questions. For example, the administration has not disclosed how many janitors were assigned to each state building, who they were and how many in total failed to show up for work at state buildings plagued by no-shows after the immigration sweep.

Given the lack of access so far to most of these records, it also remains unclear whether the executive branch under Carcieri required the companies to live up to minimum staffing and employee-identification requirements the courts imposed.

Carcieri spokeswoman Amy Kempe said the administration hired the two companies to do a job, and didn’t much care how many people the companies assigned to do it in each of four dozen state government and college buildings as long as it got done. She says she is unsure how many state contracts even required TriState and Falcon to provide the names of these janitors to the agencies where they worked, which included motor vehicle registry buildings, the University of Rhode Island campus and a National Guard facility.

State law says: “All documents pertinent to the awarding of [a] bid shall be available and open to inspection.”

In the days immediately following the courthouse arrests, The Journal filed requests under the state’s Access to Public Records law for detailed information on the contracts.

The administration provided some initial information, including the names of competing bidders and amounts they bid. At first it sought to charge The Journal $738 for the records, but waived the fee after the newspaper discovered that much of this information was available for free on the state purchasing Web page.

The state’s public records laws require the production of records within 10 days, except for “good cause.” With respect to most of the Journal’s request, the administration has invoked the maximum 30 business days — or six weeks — allowed for production of records.

On Friday, the end of the six-week period, the administration agreed to make available some documents, including bid submissions from TriState and Falcon. But on requests for other information, including names of all the workers, it referred The Journal to the individual agencies where the janitors worked, which could mean another six weeks before those agencies are required to produce the records.

Of the month-plus lag in producing documents, Kempe and others, including Jerome Williams, director of the state Department of Administration, say it is a big job to amass so many records. The Journal suggested the administration produce the records in stages, starting with those surrounding the eight buildings where workers didn’t show up after the arrests. That did not happen.

Court officials have been more forthcoming. They provided without charge detailed records of their dealings with TriState and Falcon that show more and more of the court cleaning contracts going to TriState in recent years, amid growing “dissatisfaction” with Falcon’s performance. Contracts went to TriState even when there was a lower-priced competitor.

But court officials, too, have not responded to requests for the “current” and “accurate” lists of employees who were supposed to be working at the courthouses where the arrests were made last month.

While the Carcieri administration named the janitors working at One Capitol Hill, others working across state government remain unidentified. Court spokesman Craig Berke said the courts’ lawyers were still deciding whether the names of contract employees such as these are public information.

But here is a glimpse at how the court contracts unfolded in recent years, as the number of competing bidders dwindled from six to two in some instances, with TriState — owned by the brother of state Rep. John DeSimone, whose father practiced law with the late Supreme Court Chief Justice Joseph Bevilacqua — winning contracts previously held by Falcon.

In 2006, for example, the advertisement seeking bids for a contract to clean the Licht Judicial Complex on Benefit Street, in Providence, sparked six bids ranging from the $558,360 quoted by ABM Janitorial Services, a New York-based company with clients across the region, including the Bay State’s MBTA, to the $748,776 quoted by Jerry’s Janitorial.

Falcon and TriState were in the middle, with Falcon bidding $592,957 to keep the contract; TriState, $573,000.

The courts were looking for 10 janitors and one supervisor to clean the buildings nightly between 5 and 10, and freshen bathrooms and clean up messes during the day. ABM not only offered the lowest price, it billed itself as a “subsidiary of ABM Industries Inc., the largest American-owned facility services company on the New York Stock Exchange,” with hotels, casinos and hospitals among its public and private clients.

Asked whether the “on-site supervisor [would] do janitorial work as well as supervise, or, strictly do supervisory duties,” company representative Alan Krivelow wrote: “both.”

There is no explanation in the bid file for the judiciary’s decision to award the contract — covering April 2006 through March 31, 2009 — to the more expensive TriState, except a notation that the bid from ABM janitorial came in late. Reached recently, Krivelow had little recollection of the bidding except a faint memory that his company missed a “walk-through.” (Berke, the judiciary spokesman, said he had no further information.)

It does not appear the company ever bid again for a Rhode Island court cleaning contract.

In December 2007, four companies bid for the largest of the court contracts to clean the 195,000- square-foot Garrahy Complex on Dorrance Street. A judicial purchasing committee decided to shift the contract from the lower-priced Falcon, at a proposed cost of $578,100 over three years, and give it to TriState, at a cost of $655,164 over three years.

The contract called for 17 janitors working nights mostly, and 1 supervisor who, according to the bid specification, must be able to “read, write and communicate effectively with the Judiciary and its staff in English … [and] be on site at all times.”

Said the first unnamed evaluator of TriState: “We have had an excellent relationship with TriState. Any problems or concerns have been addressed immediately.” Of the competing Clean Management Inc. of Pawtucket, the person wrote: “I have no professional experience working with this company.”

Of Falcon, the person identified only as “Evaluator 1” wrote: “We have experienced repeated problems with Falcon. Difficulties that have arisen have been repeated over and over. Their staff has been reprimanded numerous times for instances such as using judicial and outside agency items, substandard work performance, and disturbing the work environment.”

Echoed another of the evaluators: “We have consistently had staffing issues with Falcon Maintenance along with consistent complaints from the sheriff department regarding the cleanliness and level of sanitation in the cell block. … TriState over the years has been exemplary. … I have no knowledge of Clean Management.” A fourth competitor — JaniKing — never even got a mention.

On Dec. 19, the courts’ purchasing agent David Clemente sent TriState president Anthony DeSimone an award letter containing the news he had won another contract.

Days later, the situation replayed itself, only by this time there were only two companies bidding for a contract to clean the McGrath Judicial Complex –– TriState and Falcon –– and a judicial purchasing committee again decided to shift the contract from Falcon and give it to the higher-priced TriState. Falcon had offered to do the job for $120,612 over three years; TriState, $133,476.

Once again, the bid file contains the handwritten comments of three unnamed court employees who had “only good things to say” about TriState and nothing good to say about Falcon.

Said one of Falcon: “While their performance at the McGrath Judicial Complex has been acceptable, we have experienced numerous problems with them in other facilities in regards to staffing, cleanliness and acceptable cleaning equipment and supplies.” Said another: “We have had repeated problems with this company.”

Falcon officials declined comment on the criticisms.

Another good news letter went out to TriState, leaving the only other bidder — Falcon — with only three earlier contracts for smaller buildings in the state court system.

Berke, the court spokesman, said he had no further information about the problems the court system was having with Falcon, which remained one of the state’s two preferred cleaning companies. The Carcieri administration canceled all of its contracts with TriState and Falcon after the courthouse arrests. (The courts opted to keep them.)

Absent from most of the files were cost worksheets showing how much each company proposed to pay its workers. But the one exception shed light on the relatively tiny profit potential for a company that paid its workers at least minimum wage, paid payroll taxes and provided required workers’ compensation insurance.

Of the $195,652 it proposed charging the courts to clean the Benefit Street courthouse, Falcon said $148,603 would go directly into the $7.10-an- hour minimum wage salaries paid 10 25-hour-a-week janitors, 3 day porters and 1 supervisor in 2006 and another $38,859 into payroll taxes, liability and workers’ compensation insurance.

After buying an estimated $3,417 worth of supplies, which would leave the company with an estimated 2.5 percent annual profit of $4,772.

The court records made public so far provide no evidence that TriState ever provided the state with a similar cost-sheet or proof of insurance for all of the janitors it dispatched to the courts.

Until recently, TriState held the majority of state cleaning contracts. Between 2002 and last year, the dollar value of those contracts with the courts and the Carcieri administration grew from $126,860 to $720,912 a year. In that six-year period, the state paid the company $2.4 million.

kgregg@projo.com