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Archive for the ‘Governor’s Office’ Category

Sur-prise sur-prise, Gomer: Deloitte wins IT contract after spending year consulting with state on consolidation plan

Posted in ALEC, American Legislative Exchange Council, Computers, Governor's Office, IT, Privatization, RFP, Request for Proposals on September 5, 2013| 10 Comments »

As anticipated, Deloitte Consulting, which met regularly with state officials over the past year to assist in planning for a comprehensive consolidation of information technology (IT) services for the Division of Administration, was named winner of the contract for “Information Technology Planning and Management Support Services,” according to an email announcement by the Division of Administration (DOA) that went out to IT employees Thursday morning.

The announcement, which did not mention a contract amount, came only hours after LouisianaVoice indicated that Deloitte had the inside track for the contract on the strength of its working with state officials in the planning of a request for proposals (RFP) for the work.

The email said that the evaluation of proposals was complete and that work under the contract is slated to begin on Monday, September 16.

The announcement cited five other states with full IT consolidation. These included Michigan, Utah, Colorado, New Hampshire and New Mexico. It also listed eight other states with limited IT consolidation: Alaska, Arizona, Kentucky, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Nevada, New Jersey and North Carolina.

The email, however, made no mention of the massive cost overruns experienced by several states in attempts at computer conversion and IT consolidation, including North Carolina, one of those put forward by the administration as an example:

  • North Carolina, one of the states cited as a model by the email has seen costs of a contract to modernize only one system, one to process the state’s Medicaid payments, go from the original $265 million to nearly $900 million;
  • California pulled the plug on its court computer system that was to connect all 58 of the state’s counties when the price tag leapt from $260 million to more than $500 million—with only seven courts using the system before the project was terminated.
  • Tennessee experienced repeated delays, missed deadlines and cost overruns and finally stopped work after seven years of development of its Vision Integration Platform (VIP). As is becoming more and more common with bad news, the announcement came late on a Friday in order to have minimal political impact. Tennessee also experienced problems with its much ballyhooed IT state projects that affected the Department of Children’s Services, the Department of Labor and Workforce Development and the state’s Project Edison payroll system. Tennessee Republican Gov. Bill Haslam, by the way, announced last April that all of the state’s 1,600 information technology workers would be required to reapply for their jobs.
  • A consolidated service and network support project was supposed to consolidate IT services for 20 state agencies in Wisconsin at a cost of $12.8 million but cost overruns ran the price to more than $200 million, wiping out anticipated savings.
  • In Virginia a 10-year, $2.3 billion contract with Northrop Grumman to consolidate the state’s computer systems has been an ongoing nightmare of cost overruns and missed deadlines

The email touted lower overall operating costs through leveraging volume procurement, elimination of duplication, data center virtualization and standardization of IT architecture statewide.

It also said the project’s approach strategies would include capitalizing on vendor experience in other states, phased approach to consolidation of staff, agency involvement in the process and effective communication with agency staff regarding consolidation goals.

Now that Deloitte has been chosen for the contract, the next steps, according to the DOA announcement will be the selection of a project team, education of the vendor on Louisiana’s IT infrastructure and operations, survey and assessment, development of a plan of operational changes, and the request of software and hardware inventory.

Nothing was mentioned in the approach strategies about impending layoffs of state employees but that is a near certainty given the track record of other privatization/consolidation schemes rolled out by the administration.

And while DOA assures us that 36 states were reviewed in reaching the decision to consolidate the state’s IT services, one has to wonder if any time was spent examining other states in an effort to determine the cause of massive cost overruns, delays and missed deadlines.

Or is this simply yet another program fronted by Gov. Bobby Jindal but being pushed by the American Legislative Exchange Council?

This is not to say IT consolidation is the wrong thing but with the state’s budget already in the tank, it seems that a more open discussion, more sunshine as it were, would be appropriate before plunging into something that could ultimately break the bank—and still leave us with an inoperative system.

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Deloitte Consulting representative said to have boasted company has inside track for IT consolidation contract

Posted in Computers, Contract, Contracts, Governor's Office, IT, OGB, Office of Group Benefits, Public Records, RFP, Request for Proposals, State Agencies, Transparency on September 4, 2013| 8 Comments »

Ten companies have responded to that request for proposals (RFP) calling for the consolidation of information technology (IT) but because of the number of submissions, the scheduled awarding of the contract was moved back “seven to 14 days,” according to an email to bidders by Neal Underwood, assistant director of Statewide Technology.

One of the vendors being mentioned as the potential winner of the contract, expected to be worth millions of dollars, is Deloitte Consultants, one of three companies that met regularly with Division of Administration (DOA) representatives and state IT executives over the past year in discussions of what services they could provide the state.

Moreover, a confidential source said a Deloitte representative has already confided in several persons that the company “had a good shot” at winning the contract because it had been meeting with state officials over the past year.

That scenario evokes memories of the privatization of the Office of Group Benefits (OGB) a couple of years back. DOA brought Goldman Sachs in to help formulate the RFP for the privatization and the Wall Street banking firm was subsequently the lone bidder—at $6 million.

Goldman Sachs subsequently withdrew from the project in a dispute over indemnification but re-bid when the RFP was issued a second time. Blue Cross Blue Shield of Louisiana eventually landed the contract to administer the agency’s claims.

So now we have Deloitte working with state officials for a year to help formulate the RFP and the company is now said to have the inside track to winning the contract. Déjà vu all over again.

At least two other companies, including IBM, were said to have held meetings with the state in the months leading up to the issuance of the RFP. One of those reported to have attended those meetings was Northrop Grumman but that company was not one of the 10 companies submitting proposals, sources say.

Several other companies reportedly requested permission to attend the pre-proposal meetings but were denied the opportunity.

The meetings would seem to fly in the face of a July 19 memorandum from Richard “Dickie” Howze, interim state chief information officer, to DOA section heads and Council of Information Services directors in which he cautioned against any contact with potential vendors during the RFP process at the risk of possible termination.

“During 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 proposals as a subcontractor regarding this RFP or other related RFPs,” the memo read.

Besides Deloitte and IBM, companies submitting proposals included Dell Marketing, First Data, Gabriel Systems, Information Services Group (ISG), KPMG, Peak Performance Technologies, RNR Consulting and Tecknomic.

Even though the RFP was only for “Information Technology Planning and Management Support Services,” the state wrote into the RFP that the vendor awarded the planning RFP would not be precluded from the implementation of the consolidation, in effect guaranteeing the winner of the planning contract the contract for implementation of the plans.

It also alluded to recommendations for “potential legislation to support effective implementation and administration” for “effective governance models for the statewide centralized IT services organization.”

It was not immediately clear why “potential legislation” would not have been addressed during the 2013 legislative session and prior to the issuance of the RFP as opposed to issuing a contract and then attempting to address legislative issues as they arose during the course of the contract.

In conjunction with the RFP, DOA also issued a request for information (RFI) for business reorganization (and) efficiencies planning and implementation consulting services which would seem to be an exercise in redundancy given the fact that a similar efficiency study was conducted during the tenure of former Commissioner of Administration Angele Davis and that yet another such study is already underway using Six Sigma methodology.

Six Sigma is a methodology that employs tools and techniques for process improvement. The concept was pioneered by Motorola in 1981 and is widely used in different sectors of industry.

Just as with the RFP for the planning and management support services, several vendors responded with proposals. Oral presentations, as with the RFP, however, were limited to a select few companies, including Deloitte, McKinsey & Co., Alvarez & Marsal and CGI Technologies.

McKinsey & Co. is primarily an organization offering internships to trainees for conservative political causes. Gov. Bobby Jindal, who seems hell bent on privatizing virtually every agency and service in state government, worked for McKinsey & Co. for less than a year in the only private sector job he has ever held.

The RFI required that vendors, among other things, present their approach/methodology to identify operational efficiencies, experiences in other governmental settings, and the areas of governmental services “that would produce the maximum benefit.”

Portia Johnson, executive assistant to Commissioner of Administration Kristy Nichols, sent an email to companies who submitted responses to the RFI. That email said:

“Thank you for your interest in RFI 107:01-000001238 Business Reorganization Efficiencies Planning and Implementation Consulting Services. Due to the vast response and in the interest of time, the State has chosen several vendors representative of the industry to interview. Although you have not been selected to proceed in the process, we have taken any documents submitted by you under advisement.”

Said another way: “You have been eliminated for consideration because we have other vendors with whom we prefer to do business. But we are going to go through your proposals and we will probably steal some of your ideas and you won’t get a dime for your efforts. Thank you for your trouble.”

  • CNSI and the federal investigation of its $200 million contract with the Department of Health and Hospitals (DHH) and the ensuing resignation of DHH Secretary Bruce Greenstein, who had maintained continued contact with his old bosses at CNSI during the bidding, selection and contract awarding processes;
  • Biomedical Research Foundation (BRF) and its inside track advantage by virtue of its CEO/President also serving on the LSU Board of Stuporvisors, which issued the contract to BRF to run the LSU Medical Center in Shreveport and E.A. Conway Medical Center in Monroe;
  • Goldman Sachs helping to write the RFP for the takeover of OGB and subsequently being the only bidder on the RFP;
  • Meetings between state officials and vendors for a year leading up to the issuance of an RFP for the consolidation of IT services in more than 20 departments within the state’s executive branch;

Folks, we’re beginning to detect a pattern here.

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Inspired by LSU records litigation, LouisianaVoice will seek $500 per day fine for DOA failure to produce public records

Posted in Boards, Contract, Contracts, Courts, Governor's Office, Judges, LSU, Public Records, Transparency on August 30, 2013| 17 Comments »

Don Quixote, Jimmy Faircloth, Chicago Cubs, Bobby Jindal William Jennings Bryan, LSU Board of Stuporvisors, Minnesota Vikings, Jimmy Faircloth (again), Houston Astros, Bobby Jindal, Charlie Brown.

They all have one thing in common—the inability to grasp the brass ring. Yeah, we know, the Minnesota Vikings went to the Super Bowl four times, but how many of those did they win? The same number Jimmy Faircloth has won going to bat for Bobby Jindal in the state courts on various issues pushed by the governor.

Like Charlie Brown, Faircloth keeps trying to kick the football being held and suddenly pulled away by Lucy, aka Bobby Jindal only to fall flat time after time.

The futility of the Cubs and Astros should by now be familiar to Faircloth who this week was again shot down by the Louisiana Supreme Court, this time on the issue of turning over the list of semifinalists and finalists for the LSU presidency.

That list apparently is the equivalent to a closely guarded state secret and even now Faircloth refuses to capitulate to the state’s high court.

“Writ denied. Stay denied” was the terse message in the Supreme Court’s ruling. During my 20 years with the Office of Risk Management where I worked with state attorneys to defend lawsuits against the state, that language meant one thing: we write a check to the plaintiff. Period.

Ah, but the ever-optimistic Faircloth proclaimed that those four words were “not a comment by the Supreme Court one way or another concerning who’s right or wrong on the lawsuit.”

Huh?

“That’s simply the court saying we’re not going to hear the case now.”

Huh? Again.

Uh, Jimmy, loyalty to one’s boss is a fine attribute. But there comes a time when those of common sense must understand the finality of an issue and throw in the towel.

This is one of those times.

It is more than apparent by now that Faircloth/Jindal/LSU is not going to emerge victorious in this little showdown over the public’s right to know what its representatives are doing behind closed doors.

The continued resistance to the courts and the insistence that the records do not have to be produced only feeds an already growing suspicion about the forthrightness, honesty, and candor of this administration which has managed to operate in the dark shadows of obscurity, ambiguity and deceitfulness during Jindal’s nearly seven years in office.

Requests for public records by LouisianaVoice—records that are in no way protected—have been met time after time after time after time by delaying tactics, generally preceded by a cryptic email that reads, “Pursuant to your public records request, we are still searching for records and reviewing them for exemptions and privileges.  Once finished, we will contact you regarding delivery of the records.  At that time, all non-exempt records will be made available to you.”

This was the message from Division of Administration (DOA) attorney David Boggs on Aug. 7 to a request we submitted on Aug. 1. The Boggs response was already three working days late by the time he sent his response. The state’s public records law stipulates that records must be made available immediately upon request unless they are unavailable in which case the custodian of the record must respond in writing as to when the records will be available within three working days.

LouisianaVoice is still waiting for the records we requested 29 days—20 working days—ago. At the minimum fine of $100 per day, that comes to $2,000 for each of the seven records we requested, or $14,000 total.

The LSU litigation, however, has inspired us. District Court Judge Janice Clark imposed a $500 per day fine for LSU’s non-compliance. That bill currently totals more than $50,000.

We will likewise request the $500 per day fine, plus court costs, attorney fees and damages. The $500 per day fine alone comes to $70,000—money we can certainly use but which the taxpayers of Louisiana would not be asked to pay if the administration had simply complied with the law as public servants are expected to—and should—do.

Jimmy Faircloth, David Boggs or whomever DOA designates may wish to prepare for another defense after we file suit.

Not that he minds. Whenever he is given one of these dogs to defend, he simply turns on the time clock and the meter begins ticking—at the expense of you, the taxpayer. And he has done quite well defending indefensible lawsuits from pension reform to vouchers to public records. He has been paid more than $1 million to date by the Jindal administration, enough to place him in the upper tier of state legal contractors.

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More ruminations on Jindal’s power consolidation, more profitable legal work for Faircloth, Obama Katrina failure

Posted in Courts, Education, Governor's Office, Vouchers on August 28, 2013| 6 Comments »

Consolidation of power or rats deserting sinking ship?

Gov. Bobby Jindal appears to be consolidating his power base as he moves toward his final two years in office by positioning key allies as caretakers to watch the store in his four-year hiatus—a break he will no doubt us to seek higher office of latch on with some right wing think tank.

What Jindal is doing in the placement of former Chief of Staff Steve Waguespack as president of the Louisiana Association of Business and Industry (LABI) and Division of Administration spokesman Michael DiResto with the Baton Rouge Area Chamber (BRAC) as senior vice president for economic competitiveness is eerily similar to Huey Long’s lining up all his toadies before moving from the governor’s office to the U.S. Senate.

He earlier had helped get Scott Angelle, who almost certainly would have been replaced as Secretary of Natural Resources by Jindal’s successor, elected to the Public Service Commission and only recently he orchestrated the “retirement” of Congressman Rodney Alexander by placing him in a $130,000-a-year job as head of Veterans Affairs, a job, which if he remains three years, will boost his state retirement from about $7,500 to $82,000 per year.

By convincing Alexander to hang up his congressional spurs, Jindal opened the door (he hopes) for State Sen. Neil Riser to move into Alexander’s former Fifth District slot. That little coup may yet backfire as there has already been considerable pushback to that blatant back room deal.

Though BRAC did not say so, an additional duty for DiResto might be to help identify and sanction “legitimate” news media representatives. Nearly two years ago, DiResto arbitrarily decided that our sister organization, Capitol News Service, was not “legitimate.” That was the reason he gave—before relenting more than an hour later—for denying a copy of Jindal’s executive budget to CNS.

More lucrative work for Faircloth?

Jindal and Superintendent of Education John White’s ill-fated voucher plan has run into another obstacle in the form of a U.S. Department of Justice lawsuit to block vouchers in 22 of 34 parish school systems currently under federal desegregation orders.

It’s not the first time this issue has come up but the filing of the lawsuit adds a new dimension to the voucher controversy and it could be a new opportunity for Jindal’s favorite lawyer Jimmy Faircloth.

Financial windfalls don’t come along very often—unless you are Faircloth, who has already received some $1.1 million in fees while unsuccessfully defending the administration on a number of issues ranging from vouchers to retirement to lack of transparency in the selection of a new LSU president.

Now he has a golden opportunity to once again start the legal meter running.

At this rate, he could retire when Jindal leaves office.

Jindal invests in state retirement system even as he trashes its stability

You may remember all the hoopla about the state’s busted retirement systems. Jindal paraded administrative appointive officials before legislative committees to sound the alarm that the retirement systems were broke, kaput, bankrupt, broken and otherwise unsalvageable—unless the legislature approved Jindal’s radical program for state pension reform. That the “reforms” would have been devastating to state employees and would violate employee contracts was besides the point.

This was one of the dogs that Faircloth was asked to defend in state court. And it was one of several cases in which Faircloth was shot down in flames.

But wait! Even as the retirement systems were circling the drain (according to Jindal), Jindal was surreptitiously buying back his retirement from his prior service with the state in order to increase his own state pension.

Kinda makes you wonder  if he really believed his own Chicken Little falling sky rhetoric, doesn’t it?

Republican indignation over voucher suit

Hayride blog columnist Kevin Kane dutifully parroted the administration line that it was such a shame to trap kids in lousy schools.

Jindal called the lawsuit “shameful,” and said it was imperative to give every child, “no matter their race or their income, the opportunity to get a great education.”

It certainly is interesting to see these elitist types become so concerned with the education of black children so late in the day.

Katrina Obama’s fault, Louisiana GOP poll shows

A recent poll, admittedly conducted by the Democratic-leaning Public Policy Polling, is one of those surveys that Jindal has chosen not to trumpet as proof that he’s doing a “heckuva job.”

The poll showed that 29 percent of state Republicans said that President Obama was responsible for the poor federal response to Hurricane Katrina which devastated New Orleans eight years ago tomorrow (Aug. 29).

Obama may be many things—indecisive, weak, occasionally confused—but one thing he was not, was president. He was a freshman in the U.S. Senate, still three years away from being elected president.

At least Timmy Teepell didn’t try to saddle Obama with the Katrina debacle in his infamous tweet exchange with Baton Rouge blogger Bob Mann recently.

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Our random observations on freedom of expression, ATC, questionable meeting and action by Jindal’s LSU Board

Posted in ATC, Attorney General, Boards, Ethics, Governor's Office, Health Care, Politicians, Privatization, State Agencies, Transparency on August 26, 2013| 15 Comments »

We’ve come across a few odds and ends lying around that we feel might warrant a second look.

Another take on blood tests and one-vehicle accidents

First we would like to acknowledge that we initially wrote a piece based on erroneous information from certain people whose judgment we trusted but who were wrong. Because of their advice, we also were wrong in saying that blood alcohol tests are “routine procedure” in one vehicle accidents. It turns out that is not the case and we respectfully defer to the state trooper who investigated Attorney General Buddy Caldwell’s accident last week. The trooper said in his report that Caldwell did not appear to be impaired and accordingly, he did not take a blood sample for testing. We have been informed by State Police and others that it is not “routine procedure” to take blood tests in single-vehicle accidents.

ATC moves in with State Police, not so the ATC director

The Louisiana Office of Alcohol and Tobacco Control has been moved from its former headquarters at United Plaza on Essen Lane in Baton Rouge to the Louisiana State Police compound on Independence Boulevard, ostensibly to save money.

ATC Director Troy Hebert and his administrative assistant Jessica Starns, however, were allowed to remain at the United Plaza offices and to even rent additional space for Hebert’s office.

What’s with that? Shouldn’t an agency director be physically located at the same address as his employees and not several miles across town? That would be like having a governor who spends all his time in other states. Oh, wait. We already have that, don’t we?

Baton Rouge publisher opposes freedom of expression

Normally, a member of the Fourth Estate would be up in arms at any suggestion at muzzling a critic of government, a suggestion any publisher, editor of reporter would quickly point to as a threat to the First Amendment’s guarantee of freedom of speech.

Such is not the case of one Baton Rouge publisher, we’re told. Reports have it that this publisher, a staunch supporter of Gov. Bobby Jindal, has gone on rampages in his office, ranting to his subordinates and anyone else who will listen that he wants Robert Mann stripped of his tenure at LSU—and fired.

Mann, who has worked with three U.S. senators (Russell Long, Bennett Johnston and John Breaux) and former Gov. Kathleen Blanco, currently holds the Manship Chair in Journalism at the Manship School of Mass Communication at LSU.

A journalist and political historian, Mann also just happens to author a controversial political blog called Something Like the Truth http://bobmannblog.com/ in which he generally takes the Jindal administration to task for its roughshod trampling of all who dare disagree with him, be they state civil service employees, doctors, college presidents or legislators.

Mann is careful to feature a prominent disclaimer which says, “Opinions expressed on this blog are solely those of the author, not LSU, the Manship School nor the Reilly Center for Media & Public Affairs.”

But that apparently is not enough for this publisher, who dutifully prints every inane press release by the governor that purports to make the state look good despite reams of negative national surveys on poverty, obesity and health care.

So much for a fair and independent press serving as a watchdog on behalf of the citizenry. We’re just sayin’…

Cerise Memo: LSU Board quorum?

Remember our story last week about that July 2012 meeting in the LSU President’s conference room where former Department of Health and Hospitals Secretary Alan Levine pitched the privatization plan for LSU’s 10-hospital system?

There was a key sentence then-head of the LSU Health Care System Dr. Fred Cerise included in his memorialization of that meeting regarding Levine’s presentation:

“The LSU board members present indicated they want LSU’s management to pursue this strategy,” the Cerise Memo said.

But wait. The LSU Board of Supervisors consists of 15 voting members, all appointed by the governor, and one student member who has no vote.

The Louisiana Open Meetings Law, R.S. 42: 4.2, headed “Public policy for open meetings; liberal construction,” reads thusly:

  • “Meeting” means the convening of a quorum of a public body to deliberate or act on a matter over which the public body has supervision, control, jurisdiction, or advisory power. It shall also mean the convening of a quorum of a public body by the public body or by another public official to receive information regarding a matter over which the public body has supervision, control, jurisdiction, or advisory power.
  • “Public body” means village, town, and city governing authorities; parish governing authorities; school boards and boards of levee and port commissioners; boards of publicly operated utilities; planning, zoning, and airport commissions; and any other state, parish, municipal, or special district boards, commissions, or authorities, and those of any political subdivision thereof, where such body possesses policy making, advisory, or administrative functions, including any committee or subcommittee of any of these bodies enumerated in this paragraph.
  • “Quorum” means a simple majority of the total membership of a public body.

The statute further stipulates that “every meeting of any public body shall be open to the public unless closed pursuant to R.S. 42.6, R.S. 42:6.1 or R.S. 42:6.2.”

First of all, R.S. 42:6 clearly states that a public body “may hold executive session upon an affirmative vote …of two-thirds of its constituent members present.”

R.S. 42:6.1 simply lists the reasons an executive session may be held which you may explore in greater detail here: http://www.lawserver.com/law/state/louisiana/la-laws/louisiana_revised_statutes_42-6-1

R.S. 42:6.2, re-designated as R.S. 42:18 in 2010, applies only to the Legislature. http://www.legis.state.la.us/lss/lss.asp?doc=99494

But let’s return to R.S. 42:4.2, that pesky little law about quorums.

Remember, the Cerise Memo said that the “LSU board members present” indicated their desire for the LSU administration to move forward with the Levine proposal.

Remember also, the LSU Board of Supervisors is comprised of 15 voting members.

But there were only four members of the LSU board present at that meeting, according to Cerise’s notes. They included Rolfe McCollister, Bobby Yarborough, Dr. John George and Scott Ballard.

Hardly a quorum.

But then, it was the likely intent of those present to avoid having a quorum because a quorum (eight voting members, in this case) would necessitate public notices of such a meeting and making said meeting open to the public.

Obviously, that was not the wish of the board members who did attend. They wanted, above all else, to avoid a full quorum so that the meeting could be conducted in secret.

If you check out our masthead, we recently added an anonymous quote:

  • It is understandable when a child is afraid of the dark but unforgivable when a man fears the light.

Former U.S. Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis (Nov. 13, 1856-Oct. 5, 1941) is credited with coining the phrase, “Sunlight is the best disinfectant.”

But in avoiding the necessity of opening up that July 17, 2012, meeting to the public by purposely skirting the requirement of a quorum so as not to qualify as an official meeting, those four board members were legally barred from taking any official action.

Yet, that minor point of law did little to deter them from directing the LSU administration to pursue Levine’s plan.

Yes, we are fully aware that the four board members not only spoke for the entire board but for Gov. Bobby Jindal as well. As Elliott Stonecipher recently noted in his blog Forward Now, state ethic laws prohibited Levine from conducting business with the State for two years after his departure as DHH Secretary. http://forward-now.com/?p=8403

Levine’s last day at DHH was July 16, 2010. The meeting at which he presented his plan to LSU administrators and board members was on July 17, 2012.

And we don’t believe in coincidences. And anyone who doesn’t believe Levine was in constant contact with the administration in the days, weeks and months leading up to that July 17 meeting is…well, a fool.

Such is the Gold Standard of Ethics that Jindal has bestowed upon the people of Louisiana.

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