AUBURN – A local transportation company is appealing a decision to award the state’s lucrative liquor distribution contract to an out-of-state firm.

The contract to warehouse and distribute liquor to the state’s 300 licensed agency stores was awarded to Martignetti Co. of Norwood, Mass., two weeks ago. The state decided last year to privatize its wholesale liquor business as a way to increase short-term revenues and close a current budget shortfall. The basic price for the contract was $125 million over 10 years.

Todd Prawer, CEO of Auburn’s MaineCentric, is appealing the decision. Prawer, owner and president of SPC Transport, which has handled the liquor distribution for the state for the past 10 years, said his bid was the better deal.

In his appeal, Prawer said the state miscalculated the annual royalty payments of his bid and misjudged the strength of MaineCentric’s operational plan.

His bid offered the state a guaranteed $131.5 million for the contract. Further, he said the royalty payments in Martignetti’s bid are subject to performance, while two-thirds of MaineCentric’s royalty payments are guaranteed.

The Martignetti proposal will pay the state $125 million this spring, plus make additional payments depending on how lucrative the contract proves.

“I’m confident after an independent review is performed, it will show that our bid is the best for Maine consumers, the taxpayers and, most importantly, the agency stores,” said Prawer.

As another example, Prawer said his bid allows single bottles of the 45 top-selling brands of liquor to be provided to agents who request them. Under Martignetti’s bid, an agent would have to purchase an entire case of the 45 top-selling brands, or go without that brand.

Another losing bidder, Maine Liquor, of Augusta, filed an appeal last week. A three-member panel has been appointed by the state Department of Administrative and Financial Services to review the appeals.

Prawer said the calculations used to review the bids were “incorrect” and that the analysis was “erroneous.” He said the state set a gross profit margin of 36.8 percent in its bid request, but then used a margin of 38.8 percent in its analysis of the bids. It also used a higher projected growth rate than indicated in the request.

The combination resulted in assumptions that “unfairly inflate the value of Martignetti’s profit sharing proposal,” said Prawer’s appeal.

Richard Thompson, one of the state analysts who reviewed the bids, said the appeals were “appropriate” and that he welcomed having his work scrutinized.

The state made about $26 million a year from the wholesale liquor business, but was willing to lease the rights for 10 years for $125 million to make up a portion of the $1.2 billion shortfall in the current budget.

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