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 involvement with this individual was prior to the contract award. The recommendation made by this individual would not have provided any benefit to the winning vendor or any vendors bidding on the procurement.
Auditor Comment:Comment 54: This is the situation referenced in CMS?Footnote 1 in its letter dated April 14, 2005. The auditors noted that a non-State employee had submitted comments on an RFP that had not yet been issued by the Department. CMSwas unable to tell the auditors in what capacity this person was working when he provided comments on the draft RFP to one of CMS? Deputy Directors. The person?s comments were received on May 4, 2003; the RFP was issued on May 14, 2003; and the winning vendor?s proposal was submitted on June 12, 2003. Sometime after submitting comments to CMS on the draft RFP (May 4) and before the winning proposal was submitted (June 12), this non-State employee established a business relationship with the vendor who was eventually awarded the contract. Further, in his comments on the RFP to CMS dated May 4, the non-State employee stated that he ?understand[s] one of the objectives in this RFP is to not exclude McKinney & Company [sic] from participating in this procurement simply because they participated in gathering background statistics.? The winning vendor, with whom this individual soon after partnered, was McKinsey and Company. Please see also Auditors?Comment 4.
That the agency even highlighted this instead of just saying they’d enact reforms to ensure it didn’t happen again without clear guidelines boggles the mind.