Louisiana Voice

When attorneys for the Louisiana Department of Health and Hospitals last week refused to disclose the name of the firm awarded a multi-million-dollar contract, it wasn’t the first time the Jindal administration has withheld key information normally considered to be public record.

There is, of course, the infamous Chaffe Report prepared by Chaffe and Associates of New Orleans in March under a $49,999.99 contract to conduct a quickie financial assessment of the Office of Group Benefits so that Gov. Bobby Jindal could factor the information into his executive budget submitted on March 19.

Contents of that report, however, were not included in the executive budget, leading many to believe the report did not provide data that the administration wanted to hear. Refusal by Commissioner of Administration Paul Rainwater to release the report to legislators after first promising he would do so also fueled speculation that the administration was not satisfied with the report’s recommendations.

But even before that, the administration which touts itself at every opportunity as the “most transparent” and “most ethical, most accountable” administration in Louisiana history, has shrouded its contractual and financial machinations in a cloak of secrecy.

In 2009, DHH entered into a contract with ACS State Healthcare, a subsidiary of Xerox. That contract was to have run from July 1, 2009 through Dec. 31, 2009. It called for ACS to provide information and eligibility screening to individuals seeking services through the DHH Office of Aging and Adult Services (OAAS). The contract also called for ACS to provide assessment and care planning to individuals seeking and receiving long term care and personal care services, and to operate a telephone hotline for the office.

A copy of the contract is contained on the DHH web page but the amount of the contract and monthly payment terms are redacted, or blacked out. No reason was provided for censoring the contract amount in the document. There certainly no legal basis for the action.

An online search turned up the same contract information in another document, however, and while the contract number (679532) was the same on each document, the dates of the contract were not.

What began as a six-month contract turned into two years (July 1, 2009 through June 30, 2011) and the contract amount is $20 million. It has since been renewed at a higher contract amount.

ACS is one of four firms that submitted proposals for the most recent (but anonymous) DHH contract, expected to go for something in the neighborhood of at least $34 million. That’s what it now costs the state to operate its Medicaid Management Information System. It’s one of the nicest neighborhoods in the state, contractually speaking.

Other firms submitting proposals were HP Enterprise Services, Molina Medicaid Solutions, and CNSI.

DHH Secretary Bruce Greenstein served as vice president of Health Care for CNSI from June 2005 to September 2006, leading some to believe that CNSI will be named as the contractor. Greenstein said he took himself out of the selection process because of his past connection to the company.

LouisianaVoice, however, isn’t buying into conventional wisdom. To choose CNSI would simply be too obvious. We’re going with ACS—for eight reasons. That’s eight as in six contracts totaling $148.3 million and two contributions of $5,000 each to Jindal from ACS.

Besides that $20 million contract already alluded to, there is another contract with OAAS (July 1, 2011through June 30, 2014), which is simply a renewal of the present contract, for $26.6 million.

Other contracts include:

• $74.5 million with the Division of Administration (DOA), Office of Community Development that runs from Mar. 27, 2009 through Mar. 26, 2012 to assist hurricane damaged parishes recover rental units;

• $14 million with the Department of Children and Family Services from July 1, 2010 through June 30, 2016 to prepare ad-hoc reports;

• $7.2 million to provide management services to several DHH programs, including Community CARE, KidMed, and long term personal care;

• $6 million with the Office for Coastal Restoration for environmental science consulting services.

The latter two contracts each ran from July 1, 2009 through June 30, 2010.

The decision by DHH to withhold the identity of the contractor who, in all probability, will be handling claims processing and information systems for the state’s $6.6 billion Medicaid health insurance program for the indigent, remains unclear.

Former DHH Secretary David Hood said the decision sounded like an administrative one to him. “I’m not aware of any provision in the law that prevents release of a name,” he said.

Likewise, Sen. Willie Mount, chairperson of the Senate Health Committee, calling the DHH interpretation “weird,” said the law cited by DHH attorneys does not indicate to her that the selection, once made, cannot be announced. “If you have already made the decision, why can’t you disclose it?” she asked.

She and Hood agreed that springing the name of the successful bidder on legislators at a public hearing would give committees no time for vetting the selection.

When F.A. Richard was chosen as the successful bidder to take over the state’s Office of Risk Management (ORM) in March 2010, not only was the announcement made before legislative approval, the announcement was actually made before (ORM) employees were told.

The refusal to divulge the identity of the contractor, the contents of the Chaffe report, and the amount of the ACS $20 million contract with DHH are consistent with the refusals by the Louisiana Office of Economic Development and DOA to provide information required by state statute to the Legislative Auditor.

If nothing else during his first term of office, the Jindal administration has shown beyond any doubt that it is unwavering in its resolve to flaunt its peculiar brand of transparency.