Politics blamed in oversight panel's axing

A commission that reviews purchases from the disabled may have ruffled influential feathers.

By ALISA ULFERTS, Times Staff Writer
© St. Petersburg Times
published June 17, 2002

TALLAHASSEE -- Bill Thompson was suspicious.

The West Palm Beach businessman is the chairman of an obscure state commission that oversees a program that channels goods and services made and performed by the disabled to state agencies across Florida.

It has grown into a multimillion-dollar enterprise since it was created in 1974. A private nonprofit company acts as the go-between and keeps a percentage of the revenue to cover its costs.

But Thompson discovered that some of the revenue had been diverted to a similar company in Georgia. He thought that was improper and told the company that he planned to end its contract with the seven-member commission, an all-volunteer group of business people appointed by the governor.

He never got a chance.

The company used its political connections to get rid of the commission. Now, under legislation signed by the governor, state employees will pick up the duties of the Commission for Purchase from the Blind and Other Severely Handicapped beginning July 1.

The company "achieved the ultimate coup," Thompson said last week. Commissioners learned only two weeks ago that their services had been terminated in March, he said. Last week they held an emergency meeting -- presumably their last -- and agreed to ask state auditors to review the program's books.

Thompson worries that participating companies, who employ 1,800 disabled workers, will suffer if the nonprofit Florida Association of Rehabilitation Facilities continues to run the purchasing program without answering to the commission.

So far, Thompson said, more than $300,000 in state money generated by sales from those companies has been loaned from the purchasing program, called RESPECT, to a Georgia company that works with Florida ARF. The result, former employees say, is that the companies sometimes had to wait to get paid for their products.

"It was siphoned from the RESPECT account, which was the largest cash account in the company," said former purchasing program director Reinhard Mabry. "As a result, RESPECT became more cash strapped."

Florida ARF director Terry Farmer didn't deny that money went to pay another company's bills but said that didn't violate Florida ARF's contract with the commission.

"The contract specifies that funds should be managed in a separate bank account. There is a separate bank account," Farmer said. Money then moves from that account into a general administrative fund, he added.

Farmer's company, which has worked for the commission for more than 20 years, is primarily a trade association for companies that help the disabled lead productive lives. The company is interested in building a network of similar groups in the Southeast and sees its efforts to prop up the the Georgia group as part of that.

Farmer also said his group supported abolishing the commission. Placing it under a state agency is better for the program because it falls directly under the authority of Gov. Jeb Bush, Farmer said.

Rep. Rob Wallace, the Tampa Republican who amended a purchasing bill in the state Legislature to kill the commission, said he was told that the commission supported the amendment. He didn't know that most commissioners found out just two weeks ago that the commission was going to be terminated.

"This is the first that I've heard of it," Wallace said. Given the dispute over where the money went and who knew about it, Wallace said perhaps it's best that a state agency sift through the confusion.

He hopes the Department of Management Services "can sort it out."

Lawmakers created the state's preferred purchasing program in 1974 as a way to encourage jobs for the blind and disabled instead of welfare. State agencies and other government groups were urged to buy what they needed, such as janitorial services or computers, from participating companies that employed the disabled.

The state purchasing program's sales soon grew to more than $20-million, with the program retaining 7 percent to cover administrative costs, some of which include payments to Florida ARF.

That gave Florida ARF access to cash far beyond what it received from membership dues as a trade association, Mabry said. The company also billed the purchasing program and its other business enterprises, including the trade association and the Georgia company, for the administrative services it provided.

Mabry said the state purchasing program had enough cash to cover those costs but the Georgia company did not. So Farmer used some of the purchasing program's cash to cover the Georgia company's administrative bills, Mabry said. In June 2000 that amount was $321,000. By December 2001 it had grown to $382,000, according to the commission.

Annual audits required by the commission were not performed on time, so commissioners had no idea that money was being shifted around.

"There was a constant shuffling of the cards," Mabry said. "You could never get an audit to compare from one year to the next."

Thompson and fellow commissioner Wayne Coloney said such commingling of funds directly violated the part of the commission's contract that required all program funds be kept separately. State officials say they are awaiting the results of a planned audit before deciding what to do about Thompson's concerns.

Thompson said he told Florida ARF he was going to propose that the commission give the purchasing program to another management company. Ten days later, Wallace attached an amendment to his purchasing bill to kill the commission. Wallace said he did it at the request of the association.

"I believe the language came from them because I didn't manufacture it. It was reported to me that the governor's office was in favor of it and that RESPECT would accept it," Wallace said.

Mike Harrell, an influential lobbyist known around the Capitol as a golfing buddy of the governor's, said Florida ARF had him keep a close eye on Wallace's bill.

"My client thought and believes that this governor is unparalleled in his commitment to the disabled folks" and thus should have more direct control over the program, Harrell said.

Harrell said he never spoke to Bush about the bill, only lawmakers. Overall the bill increases opportunities for disabled workers because it exempts products they make from state bidding rules and requires agencies to buy from the program if it offers the items they need, he added.

But commission members say the end doesn't justify the means, and they've asked Comptroller Bob Milligan to review the bookkeeping.

Meanwhile, it's up the Department of Management Services, the agency given oversight responsibility for the program, to determine if there was any wrongdoing.

"It's going to have a comptroller audit," said DMS spokeswoman Kathleen Anders.

"This could all be on the up and up and we just don't know it yet, (but) you can't just close your eyes at this point," Anders said.

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