* Background is here. From a press release…
Chair of the Illinois Legislative Black Caucus and Assistant Senate Majority Leader Kimberly A. Lightford (D-Chicago) today expressed deep concern over an Associated Press report that suggests that Governor Bruce Rauner’s administration took action to purposely exclude state guidelines aimed at encouraging minority-owned business opportunities in an effort to steer a nearly $100 million taxpayer-funded contract to a private company that is charged with creating online efficiency in state employee health insurance processing.
The news story, published on Sunday, highlights that the system was hastily designed and has caused serious difficulties in managing health care records of potentially hundreds of thousands of public employees and retirees. In addition, the investigation exposes the Rauner administration’s efforts to award the massive contract to Georgia-based company Morneau Shepell in what appears to be a favored contractor:
“Documents show CMS staff members were told to proceed without following guidelines for ensuring minority-owned business participation,” the AP story says.
“Bruce Rauner might have purchased the Illinois Republican Party, but he doesn’t own the State of Illinois,” Lightford says. “It’s outrageous to discover that he thinks it’s perfectly legitimate to misuse the trust of taxpayers to skirt rules aimed at giving all qualified businesses an equal playing field.”
Lightford says she is discussing the possibility of utilizing part of Governor Rauner’s 10-day Special Session mandate to conduct a hearing on the failures of the Morneau Shepell contract as well as the procedures and decisions for discarding procurement rules.
“I don’t care if Bruce Rauner doesn’t like the long-established requirements to include and consider minority and woman owned businesses, I care that he decided to simply discard them,” said Lightford. “There’s a need for accountability here and I suspect questions will need good answers. We should do that in a public hearing, not behind the Governor’s preferred closed doors.”
Throughout the past six months a number of news investigations have highlighted serious flaws in the judgement of Rauner officials when it comes to hiring and contracting. Already, the Illinois Senate Appropriations Committees have held in-depth hearings on what appear to be multi-million dollar insider leasing schemes to store supplies like paper in private warehouses.
* From the AP story…
Georgia-based Morneau Shepell was the only company to respond to a quickly executed November 2015 request from the Department of Central Management Services to design a web-based portal for managing health insurance options. The request was posted for only 26 days. Documents show CMS staff members were told to proceed without following guidelines for ensuring minority-owned business participation. […]
Despite a requirement that vendors submit plans to ensure 20 percent participation in the contract by minority- or women-owned establishments under the state’s Business Enterprise Program, contract documents include a note that CMS “has been directed to move forward without the inclusion of a BEP goal.”
CMS spokesman Richard Bossert would say only that “the decision was made by CMS at the time of procurement.”
“Since Morneau Shepell was the only bidder, if BEP goals were not waived, the state would have received no bids at all,” he said. But the waiver note was dated Nov. 3, the day before the procurement request was even made public.
Emphasis added.
- Me Again - Wednesday, Jun 21, 17 @ 11:45 am:
Hand the job over to DoIT (Deloitte)! I’m sure that they will do a much better job! /s
- COPN - Wednesday, Jun 21, 17 @ 11:51 am:
Deloitte was a consultant in preparation for the online portal and not sure they were in a position to bid
- RNUG - Wednesday, Jun 21, 17 @ 11:56 am:
While you are at it, look into that for to SSRF transfer by Munger …
- RNUG - Wednesday, Jun 21, 17 @ 11:57 am:
GRF to SSRF
- Fixer - Wednesday, Jun 21, 17 @ 12:02 pm:
More procurement issues. Great.
- Anonymous - Wednesday, Jun 21, 17 @ 12:04 pm:
I encourage all to Get him with everything you can find; maybe THEN the voters will see thru his lies and history revisionism….
- Mr Peabody - Wednesday, Jun 21, 17 @ 12:04 pm:
I suspect we will see the Executive Inspector General involved here before too long.
As Rich highlights in the AP story, it appears that the waiver was instituted because they already had a bidder in mind to get the work, and they knew that bidder would not meet the qualifications.
- Anonymous - Wednesday, Jun 21, 17 @ 12:21 pm:
Maybe they couldn’t bid but Deloitte is managing damage control now, they are coordinating all the bug fixes and the ones talking with the agencies every day. Morneau Shepell is nowhere to be found.
- Rocky Rosi - Wednesday, Jun 21, 17 @ 12:22 pm:
BEP program needs reform. In cases like the Morneau Shepell contract it would have been very hard for them to hit the 20% participation goal with very low profit margins due to the fact the minority company gets 20% of the contract value not gross profit. $100 contract means $20 to the sub. Profit on most these projects are 7%-25%.
- A Jack - Wednesday, Jun 21, 17 @ 12:25 pm:
This does smell of private equity wheelin’ and dealin’. Some Shepell people also worked for Aon in Lincolnshire. Aon was recently partially acquired by Blackstone. Blackstone has had some dealings with GCTR. Coincidence or part of some big convoluted deal? People go into private equity because they don’t like public disclosure of their deals.
- Cubs in '16 - Wednesday, Jun 21, 17 @ 12:33 pm:
===it appears that the waiver was instituted because they already had a bidder in mind===
Aw, I bet they were just being proactive. You know, in case there weren’t any other bidders. /s
- weary - Wednesday, Jun 21, 17 @ 12:34 pm:
It sounds like this is one of those cases where the vendor was already selected and the bid process was just a formality to rubber stamp it. If that’s the case, the issue isn’t just that minority firms were excluded, but that ALL other bidders were excluded, including ANY from Illinois. Where is the outrage over that? Is Sen. Lightford missing the bigger issue in her efforts to turn this into a race issue?
- Anonymous - Wednesday, Jun 21, 17 @ 12:43 pm:
Got to love that independent chief purchasing officer keeping everything on the up and up. /s
- GOP Extremist - Wednesday, Jun 21, 17 @ 12:45 pm:
Under Rauner, corruption and skirting rules, in regard to hiring and procurement have never been worse at C.M.S. Believe it!!!
- Just Because - Wednesday, Jun 21, 17 @ 1:11 pm:
GOP Extremist
your correct but why stop there? many contract over at DoIT that should be looked into for bid rigging. Outsourcing to India….. its there just look?
- Union thug - Wednesday, Jun 21, 17 @ 1:14 pm:
Just think this is the same guy who want to remove the requirements of cost and efficiency from the out source paer of the contract.
- GLG - Wednesday, Jun 21, 17 @ 1:47 pm:
Why didn’t Illinois use its new Dept. of Innovation & Technology to design and run the web site? Just what do they do?
- Rich Miller - Wednesday, Jun 21, 17 @ 1:51 pm:
===your correct… its there===
Please, use to learn apostrophes. It’s not just a Frank Zappa song.
- Rich Miller - Wednesday, Jun 21, 17 @ 2:10 pm:
And now I’m listening to this instead of working thanks to you. lol
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zXP_pr7np-o
- Me Again - Wednesday, Jun 21, 17 @ 2:10 pm:
DoIT is too busy hiring dozens of upper-management types and having hundreds of meetings to do any real work.
Join us for the food-truck extravaganza over the lunch hour on Friday, June 30th at 120 West Jefferson in Springfield to celebrate our first year of not getting anything done!
- Union Man - Wednesday, Jun 21, 17 @ 2:49 pm:
Please quit repeating the notion that Morneau-Shepell is a Georgia based firm. That’s like saying Toyota is a Kentucky based firm. They’re CANADIAN and Bruce exported IL jobs.
Why is this being overlooked? Isn’t the hypocrisy obvious on its own merit?
- Rich Miller - Wednesday, Jun 21, 17 @ 2:51 pm:
===They’re CANADIAN and Bruce exported IL jobs===
Canada, Georgia, whatever.
- Union Man - Wednesday, Jun 21, 17 @ 4:07 pm:
Minimize?
Talks abt bringing jobs to IL, exports the healthcare website work for 40,000 to Canada, they in turn export a crumb to Georgia and all that can be said is “whatever”?
Man… times have changed.
- wordslinger - Wednesday, Jun 21, 17 @ 4:51 pm:
–While you are at it, look into that for to SSRF transfer by Munger …–
There has not been a reasonable or satisfactory answer to that question.
There may not be one, but Munger should be compelled to give it her best shot.
- Union Man - Wednesday, Jun 21, 17 @ 7:49 pm:
Morneau Shepell is a publicly traded company on the Toronto Stock Exchange (TSX: MSI), with market capitalization of $1 billion.
Wikipedia
Hope This Helps!
- DuPage Dave - Wednesday, Jun 21, 17 @ 8:09 pm:
Weren’t the initials MSI a big deal when Edgar was governor? I’m just askin’…..
- RNUG - Wednesday, Jun 21, 17 @ 10:05 pm:
== Weren’t the initials MSI a big deal when Edgar was governor? ==
Yes, they were …
- Just Because - Thursday, Jun 22, 17 @ 7:25 am:
Couple other facts from their web site.
1998 Morneau acquires the Canadian pension consulting practice of Deloitte & Touche
1996 Morneau launches its administrative outsourcing practice.