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Contract oversight would expand

A Senate panel advances a bill giving the Legislature more power to monitor and dictate some terms of state contracts with vendors.

By JONI JAMES
Published March 23, 2005

TALLAHASSEE - Ten days after investigators said inside information may have influenced the awarding of a $126-million state contract, a Florida Senate committee passed a bill Tuesday prohibiting such relationships.

The bill, approved by the Senate Government Oversight and Productivity Committee, also would dramatically expand the Legislature's oversight of all state agencies' private contracts in the wake of a series of missteps.

The latest revelation came March 11, when the Florida Department of Law Enforcement released findings that showed a BearingPoint employee, hired as a consultant in the State Technology Office, actually served as the office's de facto chief of staff. The FDLE said she may have influenced the $126-million contract her employer won to run the state's bank of computer servers.

Under the bill, a vendor's employee would be prohibited from supervising state employees or being involved in any way in procurements for which the vendor might bid.

The bill also would require state agencies to notify the Legislature in writing of plans to outsource state work when they submit fiscal year budget requests. And it would require agencies to develop significant contingency plans in case vendors fail to perform; to notify legislative leaders before signing any contract amendment, extension or renewal; and grant the state's chief financial officer the right to review any contract before it is signed.

The bill also lays out nearly a dozen specific terms that must be included in any contract, including assurances that the state retains control of any substantive intellectual property developed under the contract and that the vendor comply with Florida open records laws.

"I think this is the best long-term approach to improving accountability in what has been the largest change in our budget in a generation: the rapid movement from direct to indirect service delivery," said bill sponsor and committee Chairman Nancy Argenziano, R-Dunnellon.

Argenziano's plan, months in the making, was unveiled Tuesday as her committee again chastised the vendor running the state's most ambitious outsourced project: the People First personnel system run by a Cincinnati company, Convergys, that has caused paycheck and benefit problems for state employees.

State university officials told the committee their employees still wait between four and 15 minutes to have their calls answered, more than two months after the program was rolled out. Convergys is expected to speak to the committee next week.

Gov. Jeb Bush, whose departments stand to lose significant autonomy in the plan, declined to comment on the bill.

"I haven't seen it yet," said Bush, who has acknowledged some change is necessary to improve the state's record of writing contracts and monitoring vendors.

No one spoke against the bill. But in a room packed with lobbyists, several in the audience said privately they worry that legislative involvement on the front end of any contract process could doom the governor's privatization push because it would require pleasing too many politicians.

The House Government Operations Committee is expected to take up a similar overhaul plan for state contracts today.

Joni James can be reached at 850-224-7263 or jjames@sptimes.com

[Last modified March 23, 2005, 00:54:07]