No-bid contracts by state must end in the new year

Columbus Disptach: Yet another independent probe of contracting practices at the Ohio Department of Administrative Services concludes that top DAS officials and two favored IT consulting companies rigged contracts to steer state business to the consultants at excessive prices.

It was part of a long-running pattern of bosses breaking rules and ignoring objections from lower-ranking analysts. It cost taxpayers untold hundreds of thousands of dollars. One can assume it bred deep and lasting cynicism among employees who tried to do the right thing.

The abuses came to light through months of digging by Dispatch Reporter Randy Ludlow. As gratifying as that is, the fact that no one has suffered much of a consequence for the behavior is discouraging.

Gov.-elect Mike DeWine has said no such nonsense will be tolerated in his administration. We hope so, and voters should hold him to that statement.

In his latest report on the scheme, released Dec. 14, Ohio Inspector General Randall J. Meyer said consultants Peter Quinn of Columbus-based Advocate Solutions and Steven Zielenski and Cynthia Afkhami, both of Virginia-based Stonyhurst Consulting, “may have colluded” to land two contracts that together paid nearly $469,000.

Meyer recommended that the three and those companies should be barred from receiving any further state contracts.

That’s the least that should happen, considering the contempt shown for the public interest.

Final approval

At the center of much of the questionable activity was Stuart Davis, former chief information officer for DAS. He gave final approval to many of the no-bid contracts despite documented objections from purchasing analysts.

Analysts’ comments such as, “This position was unbid” ... “No competitive procurement was issued” and “This position could have been filled ... with rates at least $63 less per hour” were ignored.

In theory, DAS officials were required to have proposed contracts reviewed by the state Controlling Board, which oversees major spending. But they were able to have that rule waived in many cases by claiming the contracts were for specialized work for which apples-to-apples bids couldn’t be compared. Even then, agency rules said they should have obtained at least three bids for each contract.

The arrogance that accompanied this hijacking of a state agency’s purchasing authority showed in a DAS spokesman’s denial of Ludlow’s request to interview top executives: “The complexity of this subject matter does not lend itself to an interview.”

Nothing about a major state contract should be so complex that it can’t be justified to the public. In fact, the more complex it is, the more explanation officials owe the rest of us.

Following Ludlow’s stories and subsequent investigations by Meyer and State Auditor Dave Yost, IT officials at DAS were stripped of their authority to approve contracts. Agency officials say they’ve revamped procedures to prohibit any no-bid contracts.

Davis faced no reprisal for the questionable contracts, though he did receive a written reprimand for a different impropriety: He asked a vendor who was trying to win a contract from DAS to pay $37,000 to sponsor his speech at a Cincinnati IT conference in 2013.

Davis has retired, and we hope DAS officials under DeWine will take Meyer’s suggestion and do no business with Advocate or Stonyhurst. But the whole affair is a pungent reminder of how easily the public interest can be subverted if powerful bureaucrats aren’t held accountable.