PROVIDENCE — The Carcieri administration’s effort to enlist new janitors at a fleet of state buildings has hit a sharp snag.

The state yesterday abruptly called off 15 separate contracts with the New Hampshire-based janitorial company H&M Building Services Inc., citing “red flags” that were raised about the business’ qualifications and paperwork.

The company was one of more than a dozen chosen a week ago to replace TriState Enterprises and Falcon Maintenance, whom the state terminated for suspected use of illegal immigrant workers.

Most of the replacement cleaning businesses won just two or three of the 48 cleaning jobs, while H&M was awarded by far the largest deal: almost $50,000 in monthly maintenance jobs at 15 buildings across the University of Rhode Island campuses and at the Community College of Rhode Island in Lincoln.

On Wednesday, URI’s facilities director Jerry Sidio said university officials had raised questions about possible connections between H&M and TriState.

The potential link first came to light, Sidio said, when a URI employee spotted an H&M representative’s name on the sign-in sheet at a pre-bidding site tour the school offered to interested applicants. The employee recognized the name, whom Sidio identified as Frank Pirri, as a TriState official.

Pirri, TriState’s director of sales and operations, spoke to The Providence Journal last month after 31 TriState and Falcon workers were arrested by federal immigration authorities as they left work at six state courthouses.

Asked about a possible connection between the two companies yesterday, Carcieri spokeswoman Amy Kempe revealed that the Department of Administration had just that afternoon broken ties with H&M, but knew of no link between that company and TriState.

“It would have been cause for concern if there was a connection between the two, but as it stands, there were no principals from TriState listed as principals at H&M,” Kempe said. “H&M is a New Hampshire-based company.”

The contracts, she said, fell apart when H&M failed to return required paperwork and certifications after it was notified Friday that it was chosen for the jobs, raising what the Department of Administration considered “red flags.” The state gave the company until yesterday afternoon to submit the materials. But the deadline was unnecessary. The business notified the DOA that it was no longer interested in the jobs.

The Carcieri administration has refused release H&M’s bid application or any identifying information about the company, citing privacy concerns.

In an interview at TriState’s Providence office yesterday, David A. Civetti, company vice president, said that Pirri remained on the Tristate payroll but that the company asked him to go on a two-week vacation to trim costs following the loss of business since the courthouse cleaners were arrested July 15.

“We need to cut back a little,” said Civetti, “so again, he just took vacation time. And that’s how he’s being paid right now.”

Civetti said he wasn’t surprised to hear that Pirri could be in the cleaning business now, bidding on state contracts.

“Well, we [Tristate] can’t bid on state contracts as of now. So it’s none of our business. We can’t control who bids on it.”

This would not be the first time a TriState employee maintained his or her own company while still working for TriState.

In June, demonstrators marched outside the East Providence home of Lucilla Ramos, the company’s operations manager, demanding that she pay several janitors, many of whom wore TriState T-shirts on the job though they were paid with checks from Lucy’s Cleaning Service.

Both Pirri and Ramos had their job titles and pictures posted last month on TriState’s Web site. Neither one was on the Web site yesterday.

The New Hampshire secretary of state’s Web site lists H&M Building Services as an incorporated company in good standing. Its listed owner, Henry Torres of Derry, N.H., did not return calls for comment last night.

It was unclear yesterday how an out-of-state company that’s unknown to many in the local Rhode Island cleaning business won more than a dozen state contracts.

Kempe said it was simply part of a competitive process: H&M was the lowest bidder.

She denied, however, that the state had reached the point of formally awarding the H&M contracts, despite having sent a news release two days earlier titled “Department of Administration Awards New Janitorial Contracts.” Without the final round of paperwork, she said, the awarding process remained incomplete.

Kempe said H&M janitors had not yet started working in any of the college buildings, but she would not release any further information about the company.

The administration is now working to identify what Kempe called “the next responsible low bidder” to establish a new cleaning deal.

In the meantime, the colleges will continue relying on overtime hours from staff janitors, many of them members of Council 94, the state’s largest employee union.

Council 94 president J. Michael Downey, who works as a plumber at URI and chairs the local union there, said his members would “like to come to an agreement that we would continue to do the work. We know we could do it and save the state money and save the university money.”

More than 40 other temporary contracts announced earlier this week with 14 separate cleaning companies remain in effect, according to the administration. While those agreements will last for just 90 days, the state says it hopes those who won the jobs will bid on the longer three-year deals when that process kicks off in the coming days.

The state courts meanwhile will continue using TriState and Falcon with new conditions imposed. Attorney General Patrick C. Lynch has said he too will stick with the one TriState custodian he has left.

TriState is co-owned by Anthony E. DeSimone Jr., the brother of state Rep. John DeSimone, D-Providence.

— With reports from staff writers Tom Mooney and Karen Lee Ziner

cneedham@projo.com