A state probe last year claimed that Signet Electronic Systems of Norwell tried to discourage competitors from bidding on a fire alarm system at UMass-Dartmouth’s dormitories. A Signet executive convinced the project manager to name it as the distributor for the fire alarm project, according to a report issued last year by the Inspector General’s office.

“Naming the distributor was at the very least unabashed favoritism,” it stated. “Taxpayers bear the brunt of such anti-competitive schemes.”

Signet contests the allegation and claims that competitors’ systems would not have been compatible with the school’s existing alarms.

“The life safety systems ... needed to integrate in order for alarm systems to work,” company President Brad Caron said in a prepared statement issued Thursday. “This is a public safety issue which was fully supported by UMass personnel. At no time would Signet compromise the safety of students, cost the commonwealth additional money or violate any regulations.”

The state Executive Office for Administration and Finance issued a notice of suspension to Signet on July 22. The notice proposes a two-year debarment from bidding on state and local public contracts. The company has requested a hearing before the Division of Administrative Appeals to contest the penalty.

Signet is a major alarm distributor whose past projects include International Place in Boston and Lahey Medical Center in Burlington.

In a 2007 interview with The Patriot Ledger, Caron said about 40 percent of the company’s $28 million in annual sales comes from contracts with South Shore school districts.

The state Inspector General’s office launched an investigation in 2008 after receiving complaints about irregularities in the bidding for fire alarms at UMass-Dartmouth. Signet bid on both phases of the dormitory renovation projects in 2007.

Prior to the issuance of bid specifications for the fire alarm system, a Signet vice president convinced two employees of the project’s engineering firm to include language that the GE Security brand fire alarms were to be distributed by Signet, according to the report.

The Signet vice president was motivated by a 10-percent discount that GE Security offered to distributors who convinced project engineers to include the GE product name in the specifications, the report said.

UMass officials, for their part, failed to safeguard against price-gouging on the project, the report said.

State bidding laws discourage the use of specifications that list fewer than three brand name products as equipment options. After complaints from other companies, the fire alarm project was rebid, and another distributor from Western Massachusetts eventually was given the contract.

In the second phase of the UMass project, Signet engaged in bid-rigging, according to the Inspector General’s report. The Signet vice president e-mailed two other GE distributors and instructed them not to bid on the UMass project, or bid the equipment at list prices.

“He did not believe that his competitors should bid because he did the work of convincing the project electrical engineer to write the brand name GE fire alarm equipment into the specifications,” the report states.

Signet contests the allegations. Its attorney, Thomas Drohan of Boston, argued in a Jan. 7 letter that the UMass project was built under the state’s design-build project requirements, which are not subject to traditional public bidding requirements.

UMass’s requirements were designed to ensure continuity of all fire alarm systems on campus, and different equipment would not have been compatible, Drohan wrote.

“As a result of the flawed report of the Inspector General, Signet has suffered great harm to its good name and reputation,” Drohan wrote.