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Zounds and zowie! Jindal awards $34 million contract to firm that dropped the ObamaCare web page rollout ball!

January 6, 2014 by tomaswell

A company holding two state contracts worth $32.8 million was the lead IT contractor of the ill-fated Affordable Health Care enrollment web page rollout late last year, LouisianaVoice has learned.

CGI Technologies and Solutions, headquartered in Quebec Province, has experienced problems with other contracts in Canada and the U.S. even before the Obamacare debacle.

The largest tech firm in Canada, CGI also has offices in the Washington, D.C. area—Fairfax and Manassas, VA., Washington and Baltimore, and is part of the CGI Group which has 72,000 employees in 400 offices worldwide—many of those in India.

CGI Technologies and Solutions was awarded a $32.5 million contract with the Office of Community Development’s (OCD) Disaster Recovery Unit (DRU) on March 2, 2012 to provide computer software hosting, support and training for OCD’s Hazard Mitigation Grant Program (HMGP), small rental programs.

That contract is scheduled to run out on March 1, 2015.

CGI also has a $300,000 contract with the Office of Information Services to provide technical support for the Division of Administration’s (DOA) advanced financial system (AFS). That contract is set to expire on June 30.

The state also has a $20 million contract with Hunt Guillot & Associates of Ruston through OCD and DRU for grant management activities for infrastructure and other projects undertaken as a result of damages resulting from hurricanes Katrina, Rita in 2005 and Gustav and Ike in 2008.

The Hunt, Guillot contract was first issued for $18.2 million on Oct. 31, 2007—just 10 months after Gov. Bobby Jindal took office, and called for the firm to work in program design, the pre-application and application process, pre-construction and construction of projects related to hurricane recovery. That contract expired on Oct. 30, 2010, but the company was awarded a subsequent contract of $1 million on Dec. 1, 2009 which called for it to review applications for grant funds pursuant to the hazard mitigation grant.

It was not immediately clear how much, if any, overlap there might be between the CGI and Hunt, Guillot contracts, if one was intended to augment the other, or if the two are completely separate, unrelated contracts.

What is clear is that in April of 2013, less than a year ago, the Legislative Auditor issued a report which indicated the state could be on the hook for a minimum of $116 million and possibly as much as $600 million in improperly received or misspent disaster aid following Katrina and Rita.

http://www.nola.com/politics/index.ssf/2013/04/louisiana_on_for_misspent_road.html.

State auditors reviewed 24 loans to property owners through the state’s Small Rental Property Program. The state had allocated $663 million to the program and of the 24 cases reviewed, none had been flagged as problematic by OCD. Though only 24 cases were reviewed, more than 8,000 properties benefitted from the assistance program—increasing the likelihood that the total number and amount of improper payments could go significantly higher.

OCD Executive Director Patrick Forbes said rather than attempt to chase down homeowners to retrieve the misspent funds, he intends to change OCD regulations to provide more assistance to homeowners before “triggering the recapture of funds.”

Despite that statement of intent, a month after that audit report, on May 21, the administration issued a $600,000 contract to the Baton Rouge law firm of Shows, Cali & Walsh to “review and analyze Road Home files for overpayments, ineligible grantees, etc., (and to) negotiate and collect funds due to the state.”

Shows, Cali & Wash, meanwhile, has its own problems stemming from a federal judge’s findings that it manipulated evidence in a federal lawsuit by three death row inmates at the Louisiana State Penitentiary at Angola. https://louisianavoice.com/2014/01/03/baton-rouge-law-firm-with-3-million-in-state-contracts-faces-legal-sanctions-over-evidence-manipulation-in-angola-lawsuit/.

Meanwhile, the ObamaCare project—healthcare.com—disaster appears to have had caused a negative impact on employee morale at CGI, according to a staff worker who asked not to be identified. “There’s a lot of frustration,” he said. “People are getting sick, fainting in conference calls.”

Employee turnover is said to be high at CGI, making matters more complicated when trying to assemble a web page for the health-care exchange. Despite that, the upper management mentality at CGI appears to work toward establishing relations “so intimate with the client that decoupling becomes almost impossible,” according to one company profile. http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/10/16/meet-cgi-federal-the-company-behind-the-botched-launch-of-healthcare-gov/.

CGI was hired by the Hawaii Health Connector, that state’s new health exchange for providing insurance options under ObamaCare, to build its website and the state portal, like HealthCare.gov, had immediate problems when it launched on Oct. 1, 2013. http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2013/10/23/red-flags-company-behind-obamacare-site-has-checkered-past/.

“The morning I heard CGI was behind (the Obamacare web page development), I said, ‘My God, no wonder that thing doesn’t work,’” said James Bagnola, a Texas corporate consultant who was hired by the Hawaii Department of Taxation in 2008. “The system is broken all the time.” Bagnola said CGI was able to continue work on the Hawaii project despite repeated managerial complaints and a “corrosive environment” in which state employees felt pitted against CGI staff.

CGI’s contract to design and execute a new $46.2 million diabetes registry for eHealth Ontario, part of the Canadian government health care system, was canceled in September of 2012 after a series of delays that rendered the system obsolete.

The state of Vermont as recently as last October, meanwhile, was considering whether or not to penalize CGI for not meeting deadlines for designing and producing that state’s health care exchange as per an $84 million contract with the company.

It may be too early to say that there is an “ominous pattern” of inferior work product from CGI as claimed by some http://www.examiner.com/article/is-cgi-and-white-house-liable-for-obamacare-massive-site-failure and http://www.renewamerica.com/columns/fobbs/131028 but there can be no denial that the failed debut of the ObamaCare web page has cost taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars.

Which raises the obvious question: What quality of work Louisiana is receiving from the firm? Considering last April’s findings of the Legislative Auditor in its examination of the Road Home program, that’s a fair question.

Contractors are being paid tens of millions of dollars to provide oversight of the grant programs in the hurricane recovery efforts. But what oversight is being provided of the contractors themselves? And if the contractors need oversight, why are they even in the equation to begin with?

How do we know they are doing the jobs they are being paid to do?

If we are to believe the auditor’s report, they well may not be giving the state a return on its dollar.

Are contracts simply being doled out by the Jindal administration with little or no vetting? When one looks at some of the other contracts awarded since 2008, there seems to be ample cause for concern.

All one has to do is study the administration’s smarmy record of questionable contracts, beginning with the hiring of Goldman Sachs to help write the request for proposals (RFP) for the privatization of the Office of Group Benefits (OGB). Who was the sole bidder on that project at the outset before the project was re-bid? Goldman Sachs. https://louisianavoice.com/2013/12/01/jindal-and-rainwater-preoccupied-with-ogb-privatization-missed-or-chose-to-ignore-obvious-cnsi-contract-red-flags/

And then there was the infamous contract with CNSI http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/volpe/billionaire-swindlers-line-up-for-obamacare/

and the ensuing investigation by the FBI  https://louisianavoice.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/fbireportscnsi3.pdf

https://louisianavoice.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/dt-common-streams-streamserver1.pdf and the Louisiana Attorney General’s office https://louisianavoice.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/ldoj-interview-report-on-cnsi-from-0514121.pdf

There also is a series of contracts with Affiliated Computer Services (ACS), since absorbed by Xerox. ACS, once represented by U.S. Rep. Bill Cassidy’s sister-in-law Jan Cassidy who now works for the Division of Administration (DOA) as Assistant Commissioner in Procurement and Technology at an annual salary of $150,000). http://www.linkedin.com/pub/jan-cassidy/6/4aa/703

ACS also has its own string of problems as evidenced by stories from other states https://louisianavoice.com/2013/03/15/doa-hires-jan-cassidy-sister-in-law-of-cong-bill-cassidy-at-150000-previous-employers-records-are-less-than-stellar/ and with the Securities Exchange Commission http://www.sec.gov/litigation/litreleases/2010/lr21643.htm

Not to be outdone, Deloitte Consulting which helped the state in planning for a comprehensive consolidation of information technology (IT) services for DOA, was named winner of the state contract for “Information Technology Planning and Management Support Services,” according to an email announcement that went out to IT employees last September.

Never mind the fact that Deloitte Consulting has experienced a multitude of problems in North Carolina, California, Tennessee, and Virginia because of delays, false starts and cost overruns. https://louisianavoice.com/2013/09/05/surprise-surprise-gomer-deloitte-wins-it-contract-after-spending-year-consulting-with-state-on-consolidation-plan/

And yet this governor is so unyielding in his misguided belief that the private sector can perform any and every governmental function better than public employees that now, six years into his eight-year term, he has decided pay yet another contractor, the international consulting firm Alvarez & Marsal, $4 million to conduct an efficiency study to determine possible savings in state government.

Clueless, thy name is Jindal.

Posted in Attorney General, Audit Reports, Auditor, Contract, Contracts, Governor's Office, Health Care, IT, OGB, Office of Group Benefits, Privatization, RFP, Request for Proposals | 16 Comments »

Notable Quotables (in their own words)

January 3, 2014 by tomaswell

“Quite simply, the court finds defendants’ protestations that they acted in ‘good faith’ when installing the awnings and soaker hoses to be incredible. Defendants breached their duty to preserve the status quo on death row with the goal of thwarting accurate measurement of temperatures, humidity and heat index. This intentional, and by plaintiffs’ unrebutted account successful, destruction of unfavorable evidence is quite sufficient to satisfy the ‘bad faith’ standard.”

—Federal Middle District Court Judge Brian A. Jackson, in ruling for sanctions against a Baton Rouge law firm with $3 million in state contracts, for its actions in a lawsuit against the state by three death row inmates at the Louisiana State Penitentiary at Angola.

Posted in Contract, Contracts, Courts, Ethics, Judges, Notable Quotables | 1 Comment »

Baton Rouge law firm with $3 million in state contracts faces legal sanctions over evidence manipulation in Angola lawsuit

January 3, 2014 by tomaswell

State and national media recently devoted major coverage to a federal district judge’s ruling that death row inmates at Louisiana State Penitentiary in Angola are being subjected to cruel and unusual punishment, but an accompanying court ruling leaves open the possibility that attorneys representing the state could be sanctioned, suspended and even disbarred for their activity in the lawsuit.

The sanctions ruling just happens to involve one of Baton Rouge’s major law firms, Shows, Cali and Walsh, which has at least 16 active contracts with various state agencies worth a combined $3 million.

Besides the $30,000 contract dated July 1, 2013, to defend the state in the Angola litigation, the firm currently has:

  • A contract for $640,000 with the Louisiana Attorney General for legal services in the Deepwater Horizon oil spill (April 1, 2013 to Mar. 31, 2016);
  • A contract for $600,000 with the Division of Administration’s Office of Community Development for legal services to review and analyze Road Home files for overpayments, ineligible grantees and to negotiate and collect funds due the state (May 21, 2013 to May 20, 2016);
  • A contract for $500,000 with the Louisiana Workforce Commission (LWC) to provide legal counsel and representation to LWC’s Louisiana Rehabilitation Services Program paid at a rate of $15,000 per month (Feb. 16, 2011 to Feb. 15, 2014);
  • A contract for $375,000 with the Louisiana State Board of Nursing to provide legal counsel (July 1, 2013 to June 30, 2014;
  • A contract for $300,000 with the Attorney General’s office to provide legal services in the Tobacco Arbitration Funding (April 1, 2013 to Mar. 30, 2016).

The sanctions ruling is significant not only in the identity of the firm and the attorneys involved, but also because it is a reflection of lengths to which the state apparently is willing to go to protect its interests—even to the point of evidence manipulation and an attempted cover up of that activity.

Inmates Elzie Ball, Nathaniel Code and James Magee, who were convicted for the murders of six persons in three separate cases, filed the suit last July, claiming that extreme heat and a lack of cool water in their unventilated cells constituted a health risk. Their petition named as defendants the Department of Corrections, Corrections Secretary James LeBlanc, Angola Warden Burl Cain and Assistant Warden Angelia Norwood.

While death row inmates generally are not sympathetic figures—they’re there, after all, because they killed someone—Judge Brian A. Jackson nevertheless said in a 102-page ruling that conditions violated the 8th Amendment rights of not only the three plaintiffs but all 82 inmates housed on Angola’s death row tiers.

His 51-page ruling on a motion by plaintiffs for sanctions of attorneys representing the state, however, received scant attention, warranting only brief mentions in most news accounts.

His ruling called for a hearing for plaintiff attorneys to show cause why they should not have sanctions imposed for their failure to provide timely discovery to defendants and for a “lack of candor” to judges and to opposing counsel.

And while Judge Jackson declined to impose sanctions for spoliation of evidence in the case, he did order that Shows, Cali and Walsh reimburse plaintiffs for their legal costs for preparing their motion for spoliation “as well as any cost of discovery or fees attendant to the preparation of those filings.”

One of the more egregious sins was that of firm partner Wade Shows who told Judge Jackson that Magistrate Judge Stephen Riedlinger had approved measures taken by plaintiffs to lower temperatures at two of the tiers of death row. Those measures included the installation—under cover of night—of awnings over windows to reduce the intensity of the afternoon sun and of attempts to lower temperatures by installing soaker hoses.

Both steps were taken after Judge Jackson had ordered data collection to measure temperatures and the heat index on death row and were interpreted by the judge as a deliberate attempt to undermine the accuracy of the data collection in defendants’ favor.

Cain, in his deposition, even admitted as much: “We are actually misting the walls of the building to try to see if we can get the cinder blocks to be cooler so then they won’t conduct the heat all the way through.”

But even worse, Shows “asserted that Magistrate Judge Stephen Riedringer ‘knew’ that defendant planned to take such actions, and also asserted that counsel informed Judge Riedlinger of defendants’ intentions during the parties’ settlement conference on July 25.”

Judge Jackson added that defendants’ counsel, in a memorandum opposing plaintiffs’ motion for sanctions, said Riedlinger “endorsed defendants’ modifications to the death row tiers.”

Defendants’ co-counsel Amy McInnis on Aug. 5 “persisted in her position” that Riedlinger “tacitly approved defendants’ actions even after this court cautioned about relating the contents of confidential settlement discussions.”

The biggest problem with Shows’ representation was that it was so easy to ascertain the veracity of his claim. Judge Jackson did, and what he learned must have sent chills down the spines of the state’s attorneys:

“I have conferred with the Magistrate Judge,” Judge Jackson told McInnis. “And he has made it very clear to me, and if necessary, I will produce evidence, that he gave no party any approval to make any material changes.”

Judge Jackson said he felt “it is the case that to the extent there were discussions of the installation of awnings and other devices, that it was …contingent upon a settlement in the case.”

Then, giving McInnis some wiggle room, he said, “So, I want to ask you to be very, very careful, Ms. McInnis. Because if you tell me, as Mr. Shows told me, that the Magistrate Judge knew it and at least tacitly approved it, I am obligated then to verify that.

“And if the one person who is in position to verify that doesn’t verify it, then I’m in a position to impose not just sanctions on the parties. I may have to impose sanctions on counsel.”

Later, in issuing his ruling, Judge Jackson was adamant in his dissatisfaction with defense counsels’ behavior in the matter.

“…This court takes a moment to address its grave reservations regarding defense counsels’ conduct in the course of this litigation. In assessing plaintiffs’ motions for sanctions, it appears that defendants’ counsel deliberately dodged requests for information related to the cost of installing air conditioning; avoided turning over to plaintiffs information regarding defendants’ installation of soaker hoses; and when confronted with information regarding defendants’ willful attempts to manipulate data collection in the death row tiers, excused defendants’ behavior by creating the impression that remedial measures were approved and encouraged by Magistrate Judge Riedlinger. In light of defense counsel’s various representations to opposing counsel and this court—particularly those (who) suggested that the magistrate judge endorsed and approved defendants’ attempts to manipulate data collection in the death row tiers when in fact, no such approval was given—there appears to be a basis to sanction defendants’ counsel individually for lack of candor to the tribunal and lack of candor to opposing counsel.

“The court further finds that sanctions are appropriate based on defendants’ failure to supplement their responses to plaintiffs’ interrogatories with information regarding the installation of soaker hoses on the selected death row tiers.”

In granting plaintiffs’ motions that they seek reimbursement of attorney’s fees and costs, Judge Jackson ordered that plaintiffs file a motion for attorney’s fees and costs from Shows, McInnis and a third attorney.

“It is further ordered, in light of the court’s serious concerns regarding defense counsel’s lack of candor, that defendants’ counsel E. Wade Shows, Amy L. McInnis and Jacqueline B. Wilson show cause why sanctions should not be imposed against each personally…possible sanctions to include, but not limited to, reprimand, ethics training, suspension, disbarment and/or the payment of attorneys’ fees to cover the cost of motions and discovery to this proceeding.”

Just another day of openness, accountability and transparency for the gold standard of ethics in this administration.

Posted in Contract, Contracts, Courts, Ethics, Judges | 7 Comments »

Notable Quotables (in their own words)

December 30, 2013 by tomaswell

“If I closed my mind when I saw this man in the dust throwing some bones on the ground, semi-clothed, if I had closed him off and just said, ‘That’s not science, I am not going to see this doctor,’ I would have shut off a very good experience for myself and actually would not have discovered some things that he told me that I had to do when I got home to see my doctor.”

—State Sen. Elbert Guillory (R/D/R-Opelousas), defending Louisiana’s Science Education Act, the 2008 law that allows creationism to be taught in public school science classrooms during a Senate Education Committee hearing last May. 

Posted in Campaign Contributions, Education, Elections, Ethics, House, Senate, Legislature, Legislators, Notable Quotables, Politicians, Retirement | 5 Comments »

Chameleon Sen. Elbert Guillory: Republican, Democrat, Republican, runs for Lt. Gov. after consulting witch doctor

December 30, 2013 by tomaswell

State Sen. Elbert Guillory is the first to make it official that he is a candidate for lieutenant governor for 2015 but not before he changed his party affiliation—a second time within a span of seven years—to fit what he must consider to be the state’s demographic profile the same way he changed the first time to fit the St. Landry Parish demographic profile.

Besides his chameleon-like political persona, Guillory is an object of some interest in a couple of other ways, including his abruptly leaving his post with the Seattle Human Rights Department under a cloud, a reprimand by the state attorney disciplinary board and the expenditure of his campaign funds in payments to apparent family members.

Seven separate payments totaling $10,000 were paid in 2009 and 2010 to Yvonne Guillory of Opelousas who happens to be Guillory’s ex-wife. Another payment of $1,000 was made in 2007 to Marie Guillory of the same address as Yvonne Guillory.

Another $2,500 payment was made in August of 2011 to Guillory Window Tinting of Eunice for campaign vehicle signs.

It is his repeated brushes with ethics problems, however, that might be Guillory’s biggest obstacle to being elected to statewide office.

A story in the Dec 31, 1981, Seattle Post-Intelligencer noted that Guillory had dropped out of sight and his office had no word of his whereabouts after it was learned he was under investigation for ethics violations.

After only a little more than a year on the job as director of the Seattle Human Rights Department, Guillory was suspended without pay and subsequently resigned after being charged with five counts of violating the city’s ethics code.

Among the things the investigation found that Guillory had done:

  • Awarded a $9,999 contract (one dollar below the $10,000 threshold requiring contracts to be publically bid) to the Seattle firm of LombardSyferd Communications. One of the partners in the firm, Mona Gayton, signed off on payment for contract work that was never done. She and Guillory took out a marriage license on Nov. 23, 1981 and they were later married.
  • Billed the city for two weeks’ work while he was on his honeymoon in Tahiti (even though he had no accumulated vacation time);
  • Allowed an employee to bill the city for time spent driving Guillory’s car cross-country from his former residence in Baltimore;
  • Hired two friends from Baltimore to teach seminars to his human rights staff at $500 per day plus expenses.

Guillory later claimed he had compensatory time coming even though he was told he was not eligible for vacation. He said the employee who drove his vehicle from Baltimore on work time was attending a conference, though he did not say where the conference was.

He also said he had made Seattle Mayor Charles Royer aware of the potential conflict with the contract to his girlfriend but Guillory later resigned before the official ethics hearing could be held, saying he thought Royer would protect him but instead, turned his back on Guillory.

He later moved back home to Opelousas and in 2002, he was reprimanded by the Louisiana attorney Disciplinary Board for notarizing a succession document for his client, former Opelousas Police Chief Larry Caillier. It turned out there was a minor problem: some of the signatures on the document had apparently been forged.

Guillory admitted he was mistaken in relying on the word of his client that the signatures were valid.

Mistaken? Really? In that case, I have a title to the Atchafalaya Basin I’d like him to notarize.

He also served on the Republican state central committee until 2007, when he ran for and was elected to the Louisiana House of Representatives. Just in time for the election, he coincidentally—or conveniently—switched to the Democratic Party in heavily Democratic St. Landry Parish, explaining that fundamental differences with the Bush administration precipitated his move.

Two years later he was elected to the Senate in a special election to fill an unexpired term. As state senator, Guillory served as Chairman of the Senate Retirement Committee and authored the Senate versions of Gov. Bobby Jindal’s ill-fated sweeping retirement reform bills, all of which eventually either failed in the legislature or were ruled unconstitutional by the courts.

He also raised a few eyebrows earlier this year when he shared his experience with a witch doctor he visited and cited that experience as a bewildering, convoluted defense of the Louisiana Science Education Act, the law that allows creationism to be taught in public school science classrooms through the use of materials that critique evolution.

Guillory explained last May that he would not wish to dismiss faith healing as a pseudoscience because of his encounter with a half-naked witch doctor who used bones in his healing ceremony.

Later that same month, not yet halfway through his first full term in the State Senate as a Democrat, he made the switch back to Republican, becoming the state’s first black Republican legislator since Reconstruction. He explained that he had come to disagree with the direction of the Louisiana Democratic Party. Specifically, he said he took issue with the Democrats’ positions on abortion, the Second Amendment, education and immigration.

Well, guess what? neither the national and Louisiana Democratic parties had altered their positions on those issues since 2007 when he pulled his first switcheroo from Republican to Democrat. So his reasoning for morphing back doesn’t quite pass the smell test.

Then earlier this month, on Dec. 12, 2013, he made the formal announcement that he was a candidate for lieutenant governor because, he said, it provides the best opportunity for him to help more Louisianians.

And of course, The Hayride couldn’t wait to endorse him. http://thehayride.com/2013/12/elbert-guillory-is-running-for-lt-governor-and-he-has-our-endorsement/

His announcement goes a long way in explaining why he suddenly decided he was again a Republican in a lopsidedly crimson state.

Another coincidence? How about political expedience and half-naked, unabashed opportunism?

Posted in Campaign Contributions, Education, Elections, House, Senate, Legislature, Legislators | 13 Comments »

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