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Archive for August, 2013

RFP for IT consolidation goes out; DOA, perhaps fearing CNSI repeat, cautions employees against vendor contact

Posted in Ethics, IT, Privatization, RFP, Request for Proposals on August 5, 2013| 10 Comments »

BATON ROUGE (CNS)—The deadline for proposals (RFP) officially passed as of close of business last Wednesday (July 31) and oral interviews of potential bidders is set for Aug. 14 for the consolidation of the information technology (IT) departments of some 20 departments within the state’s Executive Branch. http://wwwprd1.doa.louisiana.gov/OSP/LaPAC/agency/pdf/5479100.pdf

The Division of Administration (DOA), which issued the RFP, is tentatively scheduled to announce the awarding of the multi-million dollar contract on Aug. 16 with work on the contract set to begin on Aug. 30 even as more and more horror stories surface about experiences of potential bidders/contractors with similar projects in other states.

Meanwhile, in an apparent effort to at least project an appearance of propriety with efforts to avoid any conflict of interest and to head off another possible CNSI public relations disaster sent out a pretty interesting email to all DOA section heads and the Council of Information Services Directors.

The “conflict of interest advisory,” a one-page memorandum from Richard “Dickie” Howze, interim state chief information officer, cautioned state employees against any contact with vendors, potential proposers or subcontractors regarding the RFP.

The IT consolidation contract could rival that of the $200 million CNSI contract which the state cancelled after a federal investigation was launched into the manner in which the contract was awarded. Former Department of Health and Hospitals Director Bruce Greenstein had previously worked for CNSI but told legislators he had built a “firewall” between himself and the contract selection process. That turned out to be false as documents subpoenaed by legislators revealed hundreds of emails and telephone conversations between Greenstein and CNSI officials during the selection process.

It was also learned that Greenstein had tweaked the contract requirements so that CNSI might qualify to bid on the Medicaid claims processing contract. He resigned in March shortly after the Jindal administration cancelled the CNSI contract but was allowed to remain on the job for nearly a month.

Greenstein’s name recently resurfaced. Now residing in Seattle, where he was living when first hired by Jindal, he was spotted at a July 8 dinner meeting in a Shreveport restaurant with Steve Skrivanos, board chairman of Biomedical Research Foundation of Northwest Louisiana. One report also placed foundation President and CEO Dr. John George in that meeting though Dr. George has denied that he was present.

Unconfirmed rumors surfaced that Jindal directed the foundation and LSU Medical Center officials to find Greenstein a job while the investigation in Baton Rouge was ongoing.

“The Division of Administration, Office of Information Technology (OIT) staff has been working on the development and release of (an RFP) for Information Technology Planning and Management Support Services,” the DOA memorandum of July 19 said.

“OIT has engaged the participation of the Council of Information Services Directors (CISD) for technical support in this endeavor and may request the support of other sections within the DOA throughout the process. OIT has gone to great lengths to maintain strict contact requirements to ensure all vendors have equal access and standardized information.

“Suring this procurement process it is crucial that you and your staff do not have any contact with vendors who are potential proposers or who may be part of a proposal as a subcontractor regarding this RFP or other related RFPs. If you work with a contractor who is a potential proposer, there shall be no private communications, discussion of the upcoming process, timelines, RFP content, evaluation or award,” the memo said.

“Additionally, it is not appropriate for any current state employee to provide a reference for a vendor responding to this procurement. These restrictions will remain in effect until the contract(s) has been awarded and the protest period has past (sic). Please ensure that your staff are (sic) made fully aware of these requirements. Anyone failing to follow this policy may face disciplinary action, up and including termination.”

Wow. Too bad that memo was not made available to Greenstein during the awarding of the DHH Medicaid claims processing contract.

Now, perhaps someone should send a similar note to the folks up at Biomedical Research Foundation of Northwest Louisiana in Shreveport.

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Who or what is Response Systems? Wisconsin firm has $900K contract to help with LA. hurricane evacuations

Posted in Contract, Contracts, GOHSEP, Governor's Office, Health Care, Layoffs, Public Records on August 5, 2013| 39 Comments »

The best little hurricane response company no one ever heard of has been handed a contract by the Jindal administration to provide physicians, nurse practitioners, registered nurses, licensed practical nurses, nursing assistants, respiratory therapists, licensed social workers and clerical and administrative staff in case a major hurricane strikes Louisiana.

And the company is in Wisconsin.

Response Systems, Inc., a company in Oconomowoc (can I buy a vowel?), Wisc. was named recipient of the $871,000 contract, apparently because it is more qualified in hurricane relief than any other company from Texas to Florida.

Funny thing is, no one in Wisconsin seems to know squat about the firm.

A business reporter for the Milwaukee Journal knew nothing of the company other than a story that ran several years ago naming a new vice president/general manager who is no longer with the firm.

Even stranger, Bob Duffy, Director of Economic Development for Oconomowoc, drew a blank when asked about the company on Monday. “I never heard of them,” he said.

One would reasonably think that the director of economic development in the very town in which Response Systems, Inc. is domiciled would know of the company and whether it was a viable, thriving member of the local business community.

It required a fairly extensive search, but a web page for the company was finally found which offered some information about the company. http://www.disasterpreparation.net/about-news.html

LouisianaVoice attempted to call Response Systems but got the voice mail of the firm’s registered agent, Todd Grainger.

Here’s what we do know:

  • The contract with the Department of Health and Hospitals (DHH) runs from Feb. 1, 2012 to Jan. 31, 2016 and is for emergency preparedness and readiness training—something we just assumed in our own naïve way was the responsibility of the Governor’s Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness. After all, what is the function of a state agency with a current budget of $1.3 billion—unless it’s just to be sure the state has a sufficient supply of ice for the next hurricane?
  • The company will get even more money in case it has to do anything—like providing medical teams in the event of a disaster.
  • Response Systems would be called out for a minimum five-day deployment at a cost of $290,714, plus travel and meals—that’s over and above the $871,000 contract amount.
  • The company may provide staffing of more than 150 licensed personnel to ensure operational efficiency and recovery in the event of a mass medical surge or evacuation.
  • The company must have teams in place within 48 hours of call-up.
  • Response Systems, Inc. employs fewer than 10 people and had revenues of less than $500,000 last year, according to an online business profile service.
  • The company was first incorporated in January of 2009, was sent a notice of administrative dissolution for failure file an annual report on Oct. 1, 2010, and was restored to good standing after filing its report on Oct. 28, 2011—barely three months before entering into its contract with DHH.

In perhaps the irony of all ironies with this administration, DHH Secretary Kathy Kliebert was quoted as saying, “If the event (a hurricane of some like disaster) goes on for a prolonged period of time, we didn’t have the staff to really staff those shelters appropriately.”

Might this be because Jindal has gutted state agencies with widespread layoffs so that he could contract with these private firms? Could this be another CNSI on a somewhat smaller (like $200 million smaller) scale?

While LSU has provided professional staff in the past, state public health nurses are getting fewer in number with the cutbacks and Kliebert said hospital privatization changes which have occurred recently made the contract necessary. Really?

State Health Officer Dr. Jimmy Guidry added that while it was nice to have had support from LSU in the past, “It’s a new day. Business is different. We have to get a little more creative.” Really again.

The company’s website says Response Systems, Inc. has contracts with several other states, including Colorado, Washington and Kansas for similar services.

The web page said it is actively recruiting medical teams to assist with on-demand mass evacuation operations on the Gulf Coast.

“We are respectful of the large responsibility Louisiana DHH has tasked us with,” said Grainger on the website. “Our ability to successfully carry out past response missions in Louisiana is a key building block to insure a now larger statewide construct of support.”

The website described the company’s role in assisting DHH following Hurricane Gustav in 2008.

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Teepell weighs in on Ice waste story by tweeting blame back to Ex-Gov. Kathleen Blanco’s handling of Hurricane Katrina

Posted in Auditor, Contract, Contracts, Governor's Office, Transparency, Waste on August 4, 2013| 18 Comments »

Twitter apparently is the new eight-party line.

Growing up in Ruston when it truly was a rural community (the two taxi services were the One-Four (green Chevrolets) and the Twelve Hundred (black Fords) taxi companies because their respective telephone numbers were 14 and 1200. (One could go just about anywhere in Ruston for a quarter and the cabbie kept his money in a cigar box—and tipping was unheard of.) The local furniture store was 1. Apparently they had the first telephone ever installed in Ruston.

Much like Barney Fife and Andy in The Andy Griffith Show, we had to pick up the receiver and wait for the operator to come on the line and we would give her the number we wanted to call.

This was, of course, long before the first dial system came to Ruston and our number was changed from first 122-J and then 1190-M (the letters J and M told the switchboard operator which way to move the lever—push forward and pull back were the options—to ring the proper number on a two-party line. Four- and eight-party lines had ring codes like a long, a short and another long, etc.) to Alpine 5-0177, later AL5-0177 and then simply to 255-0177 and still later to 255-5276 because the telephone company didn’t want the last four digits starting with a zero. (And we thought things were simpler back then.)

But even with the dial system, we remained on a two-party line with our neighbor, the Williamsons. To my knowledge, neither of us listened to the others’ conversations because we were friends and respected each other.

Out in the country, it was a different story. The best way to get news back then was to listen in on those eight-party lines—mainly because with eight households sharing a line, it was impossible to know who was eavesdropping.

Ah, nostalgia. It’s not what it used to be.

Twitter, it seems, can be just as fun.

Take the recent exchange between Gov. Bobby Jindal’s alter-ego Timmy Teepell and Robert Mann, political historian, holder of the Manship Chair in Journalism at the Manship School of Mass Communication at LSU, and who formerly worked for three U.S. Senators and former Gov. Kathleen Blanco.

The topic of conversation was the recent report by the Louisiana Inspector General which noted that the Jindal administration paid the equivalent of $28 a bag for 10-pound bags of ice following Hurricane Isaac last year only to pay another $312,000 restocking fee to the ice vendor and then allow the ice to melt in an unrefrigerated storage building at a total cost of more than $7.1 million.

Occasionally others listening in on the 21st Century party line would chime in.

Unfortunately, we don’t have the entire string of comments, but we have enough to know that Teepell got a little thin-skinned about the whole matter and attempted to toss the issue back into the lap of Blanco by alluding to events that occurred in the wake of Hurricane Katrina in 2005.

Following are a few of the choice comments:

  • Mann: “Jindal’s response to Ice Capade is that too much is not enough. If only he took same approach to higher ed and health care funding.”
  • Teepell to Mann and Jan Moller of the Louisiana Budget Project: “Remember when (Mann) worked for Blanco and that hurricane hit and people didn’t have enough ice. That sucked.”
  • Mann to Teepell and Moller: “Waiting days and days for the ice, buses and troops that Bush and FEMA promised. That really sucked.”
  • Teepell to Mann: “Do u remember working for Blanco? Should I post links to the TV footage? When people need food, ice and water…u get it 4 them.”
  • Mann to Teepell: “You seriously want to talk about people ‘suffering’ under a governor’s watch?? Your irony meter needs adjusting.”
  • Teepell to Mann: “We got ice to everyone who needed it…but under your watch (Mann was working for Blanco at the time of Katrina), these folks were left to suffer.”
  • Mann to Teepell: “I recognize those people. They’re the same ones to whom you now refuse health insurance. They love Jindal.”
  • Teepell to Mann (attaching photo of a throng outside the New Orleans Convention Center after Katrina): “Do you recognize these people, too?”
  • At this point someone named Calvin Lester Jr. offered his two cents worth to Teepell and Mann: “Those are the people you (Republicans) made sure never came back so your guy could win.”
  • Another participant, Jenny Barber Valois, to Teepell and Mann: “I applaud having ordered ice. The amount and waste are unacceptable. Melting for a month, why not offer to public?”
  • Third party line member, identified only as Baudenski, to Teepell and Mann: “So happy that the nation’s most desperate can be used to prop up Jindalite’s rhetoric.”

That certainly beats the local news from the old eight-party lines where the most titillating news item was when it was learned that Mrs. Brewster just got back from Houston where she had a wart removed from her nose only to learn that Mr. Brewster had supper of squash, collard greens and cornbread with the widow Johnson while she was gone.

But I’d still rather hear about the wart on Mrs. Brewster’s nose any day than listen to Timmy Teepell whine.

Somehow, trying to prop this administration up by attacking someone who has been out of office for more than five years just doesn’t seem to be much of a defense for such monumental waste.

I guess as much as anything else, it’s his cavalier attitude that is so reflective of the entire Jindal administration that I find offensive.

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IG report: GOHSEP pays $28 per 10-lb. bag for ice, stores it in unrefrigerated warehouse to melt at total cost of $7.5M

Posted in Contract, Contracts, Governor's Office, Public Records, State Agencies, Transparency, Waste on August 3, 2013| 22 Comments »

BATON ROUGE (CNS)—In anticipation of Hurricane Isaac a year ago, the Governor’s Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness (GOHSEP) purchased 33.9 million pounds of ice at a cost of more than $7.1 million, nearly half of which was allowed to melt in an unrefrigerated warehouse in Lacombe, according to a report just released by the Louisiana Inspector General’s (IG) office.

Lacombe is in St. Tammany Parish.

GOHSEP Director Kevin Davis was St. Tammany Parish President until his appointment by Jindal to head GOHSEP in December of 2011.

In addition to the cost of the ice, the state also paid Pelican Ice, Inc. of Kenner nearly $1.1 million for mileage and $9.2 million in “loitering” fees for Pelican drivers at $75 per hour, bring the total cost of the ice supply project to $17.4 million.

The reported noted that the Louisiana National Guard (LANG) claimed that 1.5 million bags of ice were distributed to the public.

Pelican, however, invoiced GOHSEP for the delivery of only 142 truckloads, or 624,800 bags. Pelican was the sole supplier of ice for the hurricane relief effort.

Based on all associated costs, GOHSEP paid $28 per bag of ice distributed.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) reimbursed the state for 75 percent of the costs of the ice with GOHSEP paying the remaining 25 percent.

Certainly, had there been a widespread power outage caused by Isaac and had the administration not been prepared with sufficient supplies of ice, there would have been harsh criticism from those unable to obtain ice.

But at the same time, it would seem reasonable to assume that GOHSEP would have taken the necessary precautions to secure refrigerated storage facilities for the ice that was not distributed to storm victims.

Isaac made landfall near the mouth of the Mississippi River on Aug. 28, 2012, and GOHSEP place three separate orders with Pelican for ice—on Aug. 29, Aug. 30 and Sept. 2. Each order was for 15,050,000 pounds of ice in 10-pound bags, or 45.15 million pounds total. The amount actually delivered was 33.9 million pounds for which Pelican invoiced the state $17.4 million.

The invoice amount included 268,856 miles at $4 per mile ($1,075,901), $9,207,692 “loitering time,” the time which Pelican’s drivers were required to wait to load or unload their trucks beyond a four-hour delay. The ice itself cost $7,124,000, according to Inspector General Stephen Street, Jr.

Additionally, GOHSEP agreed to pay Pelican a $315,000 “restocking charge” to take back some of the ice but the ice was taken to an unrefrigerated warehouse in Lacombe where it was allowed to melt. The warehouse rental was negotiated by Baron Property Management of Destrehan. The registered agent for Baron Property Management, Paul J. Murray, contributed $1,000 to Jindal in November of 2008.

The cost of the ill-fated Lacombe warehouse project came to more than $7.5 million, the report said. That included $3.2 million for the ice, $416,114 in mileage costs, $315,000 for the “restocking fee,” and $3.6 million in loitering costs.

Another sticking point noted in the IG report was that even though GOHSEP paid Pelican $4 per mile and the $75 per hour loitering fee, it also paid $238,819 to refuel the loitering ice trucks. This meant that taxpayer dollars paid mileage and purchased fuel for the trucks, in effect, a dual payment.

Among the IG’s findings and recommendations:

  • During hurricane Isaac, neither GOHSEP nor LANG had an inventory tracking system sufficient to accurately record the daily consumption of ice. Such a system should be implemented to ensure that the essential amounts of commodities are on hand or on order.
  • We found that LANG could not provide supporting documentation to show the amounts of ice consumed and requested during the hurricane. An inventory tracking system should include a feature that reliably memorializes the amount of commodities requested by each parish and the quantities ordered and delivered to fulfill those requests.
  • GOHSEP expended $7,536,314 to acquire, transport and restock ice that was allowed to melt in an unrefrigerated warehouse. To prevent such unnecessary expenditures of public funds in the future, GOHSEP should include a provision in its ice contracts for excess ice to be returned to the distributor along with a refund of the value of the returned product.
  • GOHSEP paid $238,819 to purchase fuel for refrigerated trucks that it was already paying $1800 per day to loiter. Future delivery contracts should be written to ensure that trucks receiving loitering and mileage payments be required to provide their own fuel. In the event that the trucks cannot leave their assigned location, arrangements should be made for fuel to be delivered to the trucks at their own expense.

Davis, in his response to Street’s report, said that all four of the report’s recommendations have since been implemented by GOHSEP.

In September of 2008, Jindal lost no time in making Department of Social Services Secretary Ann Williamson the scapegoat for the confusion that surrounded shelter conditions and the emergency food stamp program following Hurricane Gustav.

Though Williamson officially “resigned,” it is no secret that she was forced out, or “teagued” by Jindal—a tactic that seems to be his preferred method of jettisoning people he doesn’t want in his administration. Williamson had the misfortune of having served under former Gov. Kathleen Blanco, apparently an unpardonable sin in the Jindal administration.

In commenting on Williamson’s departure, Jindal, as is his custom, declined to say whether he leaned on her to resign, choosing to fall back on what would become a familiar line with subsequent departures: “We agreed it was time to go in a different direction.”

No word has been forthcoming from the governor’s office if any disciplinary action might be considered for Davis’s waste of $7.5 million in lost ice and transportation costs or if an agreement to “go in a different direction” might be in the works.

Of course Williamson was not the one who contributed $3,000 to Jindal’s campaigns.

That was Davis.

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One NGO recipient run by senator’s husband; another holds millions in state contracts, to run LSUMC on blank contract

Posted in Budget, Campaign Contributions, Contract, Contracts, Governor's Office, Grant, Grants, House, Senate, Legislature, Legislators, Politicians, Public Records, Transparency on August 2, 2013| 11 Comments »

BATON ROUGE (CNS)—Before we leave the Non-Governmental Organization (NGO) funding controversy (for now; we can always return to it when events warrant), we thought we’d review a few of the more interesting NGO funding requests that came before the Louisiana Legislature this year.

We interrupt this story for a tip of the hat to our friend C.B. Forgotston who provided us with some background information on one of the 36 organizations that State Treasurer John Kennedy said earlier this week were a tad negligent in providing an accounting of how their NGO funding from the state was spent.

Forgotston pointed out that one of those, The Colomb Foundation in Lafayette, is being asked to account for $300,000 of $361,000 in funding it received.

All non-profits are required by law to file Non-Profits 990 Reports with the IRS each year. These reports are public record but search of Non-Profits 990 Reports by Forgotston produced no results under the name The Colomb Foundation, Inc.

Oops.

The foundation’s registered agent is Sterling Colomb, according to the Louisiana Secretary of State’s office.

Sterling Colomb is married to Yvonne Dorsey-Colomb.

Yvonne Dorsey-Colomb is a state senator from Baton Rouge.

Oops again.

Connect the dots and follow the money, folks.

Thanks, C.B.

We return you now to our regular story.

Altogether, about 100 applications were received from the same NGOs which submit their paperwork each year in hopes of receiving funding from the state.

In the past, it’s been pretty much a routine procedure to ask for—and receive—funds from the state. It is, after all, a scheme strikingly similar to vote buying, only more respectable, we suppose. Who could vote against a legislator who brought home funding for the local Council on Aging or for a community activity center or a kids’ baseball park?

That was then when the state had money. There was little to no oversight provided on the disposition of these funds. Give ‘em the money and remind them who to vote for next election.

But this is now when funding is hard to come by and when the governor is pulling money from higher education, health care and developmentally disabled programs and using one-time money to plug budget holes.

Still the applications came in from those councils on aging, local civic clubs, arts museums, the YMCAs and substance abuse centers.

Even the Treme Community Education Program, Inc. which was on that list of 36 organizations that State Treasurer John Kennedy is asking to provide an accounting for the use of past funding—or pay the state back—submitted a request.

In the case of Treme Community Education Program, it is being asked to account for the expenditure of $425,000 but that didn’t prevent the organization from submitting a request this year for $475,000 “to provide transportation for senior citizens to all offsite field trips; wholesome nutritious means, and organized physical, academic and social activities specifically for their age group.”

Small potatoes. Check out some of the other requests, some of which were approved in House Bill 1, the state’s general appropriations bill signed into law by Gov. Bobby Jindal as Act 13. First, those that received funding:

  • $1 million for the 2013 NCAA Women’s Final Four Basketball Tournament Host Committee;
  • $544,020 for the Greater New Orleans Sports Foundation;
  • $280,577 for the New Orleans Bowl;
  • $151,140 for Healing Hearts for Community Development in Metairie;
  • $400,000 for the Avondale Booster Club.

Here are some of the other requests:

  • New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival and Foundation (Jazz Fest): $2,470,586;
  • State Fair of Louisiana (Shreveport): $12,664,960;
  • 2014 NBA All-Star Host Committee; $3,250,000;
  • Teach for America: $5 million (at least $1 million of that request was approved by the Board of Elementary and Secondary Education). TFA, in addition to the money received from the state outright, also receives $3,000 per teacher placed from local school districts that hire TFA teachers. The local school districts must also pay the salaries of the TFA teachers.
  • Biomedical Research Foundation of Northwest Louisiana: $6.53 million (approved for $4.8 million in Priority 2, or second year funding).

This is the same Biomedical Research Foundation of Northwest Louisiana that was recently awarded a blank contract by the LSU Board of Stuporvisors to assume administrative and operational control of the LSU Medical Center in Shreveport and E.A. Conway Medical Center in Monroe.

This is the same Biomedical Research Foundation whose President and CEO, Dr. John F. George, Jr., is a member of the LSU Board of Stuporvisors—the same public agency that somehow skirted all existing conflict of interest laws to award that blank contract to an organization run by one of its board members.

That’s the same John F. George, Jr., M.D., who made two campaign contributions of $5,000 each to Jindal.

That’s the same Biomedical Research Foundation whose board members, including John F. George, Jr., M.D., combined to contribute $31,000 to various Jindal campaigns. Besides George, those board members and the amounts contributed include:

  • Roy L. Griggs of Griggs Enterprise: $5,000;
  • Thomas Pressly, III, M.D.: $3,500;
  • John F. Sharp, past President/CEO: $2,500;
  • Craig Spohn of the Cyber Innovation Center: $10,000.

Oh, and this is the same Biomedical Research Center of Northwest Louisiana that currently has five active contracts with the state, excluding that blank contract with LSU, totaling $26.2 million. These include:

  • $14 million “for capital improvements for the wet-lab business incubators.”
  • $995,966 “to facilitate economic development by developing infrastructure need to provide technology transfer assistance to the university systems of Louisiana and to help commercialize technologies through the operations of a wet lab facility.”
  • $8.75 million for research equipment.
  • $1.9 million for “scanner acquisition for the positron emission tomography imaging center.”
  • $563,700 the “provide PET and PET/CT scans for patients who are financially and medically indigent.”

Going back a few years, the Biomedical Research Foundation of Northwest Louisiana, which will henceforth operate the LSU Medical Center in Shreveport and the E.A. Conway Medical Center in Monroe with a blank contract, also had eight contracts (now expired) totaling another $14.1 million.

So it only makes sense that the foundation would be seeking an additional $6.53 million in NGO funding for “acquisitions.”

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