Archive for April, 2005
Posted in April 26th, 2005
From Illinois Issues. Of course, the problem with the article isn’t that Illinois is paying for $24 million for IPAM services, it’s actually paying closer to $30 million. And yeah, Roskam was on top of this one. So credit to him. UPDATE: Pat Guinane wrote in below to point out the amendments were tacked on […]
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Posted in April 26th, 2005
The Rockford Register Star set up the next bit of the report well with the following story: SPRINGFIELD — When Gov. Rod Blagojevich set out to streamline government at the start of his term two years ago, he pushed a law requiring agencies to put money saved from operating efficiencies into a special savings account. […]
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Posted in April 26th, 2005
Back in December Aaron Chambers was all over the story of contracts not being approved, but work beginning under the terms of the contract. That’s when State Comptroller Dan Hynes wisely withheld payment on two contracts. The Auditor addresses the same issues: FINDING: (Not Timely in Executing Contracts) The Department of Central Management Services (Department) […]
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Posted in April 26th, 2005
IlPundit offers up a good summary if RFP Madness is making your eyes glaze over. However, it?s worth noting that the decision by the administration and CMS to avoid responsibility and to attack the professionalism and ethics of Bill Holland and the Office of Auditor General will likely go down as perhaps the stupidest political […]
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Posted in April 26th, 2005
The Finding: The Department of Central Management Services (Department) allowed a vendor to extensively revise its proposal during the best and final process after initial scoring evaluations were completed. Several items deleted by the vendor during the best and final process eventually were added back into the agreement, in the form of contract amendments, subsequent […]
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Posted in April 26th, 2005
I know that the initials RFP usually produce snores, but the rank incompetence is amazing. Going to page 21a, the RFP response by CMS starts. The essential issue here is that if you change the RFP process, you have to give everyone a fair chance to respond or you can game the system towards favored […]
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Posted in April 26th, 2005
Instead of simply addressing the findings, CMS attacks the Auditor General’s operations starting on Page 19 of the CMS Response CMS Response: First, CMS did not use any of the firms listed in the finding to develop specifications. This is clear in the work papers (Meeting minutes, CMS and OAG: 12/20/04, 1/13/05, 1/20/05, 1/24/05) and […]
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Posted in April 26th, 2005
Original Auditor Statement:The Department had a non-State employee review the RFP prior to the release of the RFP. A memo was in the file from this individual suggesting benchmarking as a goal in the RFP. This individual was subsequently named as partnering with the winning vendor. CMS Response: CMS provided clear documentation confirming that any […]
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Posted in April 26th, 2005
One finding is: CMS’ contract files lacked individual scoring sheets for 6 of 9 efficiency initiative contracts we tested. Eight of 9 contract files we tested lacked evidence of a written determination for contract award. The 9 contracts totaled $69 million. The back and forth is fascinating CMS Repsonse:CMS contract and/or solicitation files always contain […]
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Posted in April 26th, 2005
Jeesshhhh is this brutal CMS Response:Based on the comments during the entrance conference, CMS was concerned that the information in the draft report might not comply with these standards, perhaps not because there was a deliberate effort to do so, but because it would either be expedient to do so, or that the issues involved, […]
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Posted in April 26th, 2005
CMS Response: Indeed, in 2004, CMS received the Cronin Gold Award, the highest award for innovation in state procurement from the National Association of State Procurement Officers. CMS was also recently notified that it has won a national award from the E-Gov Institute, also for its innovative practices in government. Auditor Comment: Comment 7: In […]
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Posted in April 26th, 2005
CMS Response:Conferences refused to provide its basis for findings that CMS challenged, either telling us to ?save our argument for our response? or, in the case of legal issues, ?get an opinion from the Attorney General,? knowing full well that there was inadequate time to do so. Auditor: Comment 5: Generally, the auditors and audited […]
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Posted in April 26th, 2005
Best Response by the Auditor to a Runman charge (well that I found yet) Comment 8: We?re puzzled as to how Director Rumman could have had a discussion with the auditors at the entrance conference about unsubstantiated media allegations when, in fact, Director Rumman did not attend the entrance conference. Furthermore, no auditor in attendance […]
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Posted in April 26th, 2005
That’s really stupid. Rich Miller points out part of the CMS response here. He points out that the reporters love the office and that’s true–the auditor essentially writes stories for them by doing the job of auditor, but more importantly Holland can’t be painted as a partisan hack given his reappointment was unanimous and he […]
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Posted in April 26th, 2005
Kudos to the Birkett team for the funnest headline I’ve seen yet: ?Today’s shocking report on the utter incompetence, corruption and waste in the Rod Blagojevich administration will go down in Illinois history as the ?Magna Carta of Mismanagement.? The Auditor General of his own party lays out in graphic detail how the Rod Blagojevich […]
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