DOI Wired RFP Saga Episode III
Intro: Let me start by saying that I’m not crazy about the fact that I let myself fall into the DOI’s rabbit hole. Nevertheless, by viewing the RFP I drank from the little bottle labeled “drink me” so there appears to be no turning back now. Anyway, here is the latest in what will no doubt be a 100 post saga about the shady “management consultant” RFP issued by the Insurance Commissioner.
In response to my email to Mr. Gould, I heard back from Elliot Jacobsen who characterized my post and questions submissions as an “attack” and said that the blog was undertaking some kind of “scorched earth approach” to dealings with the office. So now, in addition to knowing that the RFP is not meant to initiate a best-value procurement, we know that asking quite a few legitimate questions is an “attack” and putting up a blog post which makes a case that the “management consultant” RFP issued by the Insurance Commissioner’s office appeared to be a set up to transfer money to insiders is a “scorched earth” policy. Positions with multiple ironies, I think.
Below is the latest “DL Consulting” email to Mr. Gould.
Dear Mr. Gould:
We are in receipt of a response from Elliot Jacobson who asks us a number of pre-qualification questions that were not part of the requirement listed in the RFP to establish standing to ask questions about this RFP. Since this RFP does not provide any limitations on who may ask questions, we would wish to see answers to these posted on the website. Or we would like to understand the procurement rules that would allow you to ignore questions submitted in accordance with the RFP requirements.
We respond back to you on this since you are the officially named contact on this procurement and we don’t understand Mr. Jacobson’s relationship to the DOI, since his correspondence does not come from a state email domain, but from Comcast. We expect that people conducting official business of the State would correspond under its web domain. Finally, in the interest of full disclosure, you should know that we will not be bidding on the contract, but have posed the questions about the RFP as citizens and taxpayers using the humorous conceit of a consulting firm to underscore what we feel is the sketchy nature of the RFP.
We look forward to your responses to our questions or a detailed explanation as to the State regulations that allow you to not answer legitimate questions on this procurement.
Jason330
DelawareLiberal.net
Tags: Insurance Commissioner, Karen Weldin Stewart, The Delaware Way
Hmmm, Senor Jacobsen must have gotten the memo from Karl Rove. Conduct the shady stuff off of the government account.
Problem is, Jacobsen appears to be conducting an RFP negotiation, state business for sure, ‘off the books’ of the state system.
If our state auditor isn’t too busy sopping up the chicken ‘n dumplings gravy from his sweat-soaked shirt (Helpful Hint from Helobulo: Take off the shirt & lick the gravy), could he please find time to look into this?
Seriously, is the IC’s Office conducting an RFP, and doing it as an end-run around the state? Somebody in a position of authority, or even a figurehead like, say, KWS, needs to answer those questions.
If Wagner doesn’t do anything, maybe a referral to the State AG or even the Federal DOJ (wire fraud is unlimited in its scope and/or public corruption) might also do the trick.
Dude,
What you are doing here is awesome, but you really need to have a bigger bullhorn in order to get it more attention. Reach out to Mascitti to judge the meat on this carcas that is the IC office. Seriously, do it. I think he’d give you an honest assessment of your teeth in this and give you a real lift if there’s life to it (which I totally think there is). It needs to be elevated.
Oh, and that horse head in your bed, nothing to worry about there. They told me it was just fun-and-games. ha-ha-ha kind of stuff.
😉
I loved Cassandra’s expose concerning the timeline of submission to interview: 24 hours? I guess you don’t need a lot of time when you’ve already decided who’s going to get the job.
This stinks to high heaven.
It is incredibly odd to me that when the Governor has called for a 10% reduction in the use of consultants and contractors that we’d see an RFP like this that pretty clearly is not organized to get Best Value for Delaware or its pretty overly stressed out taxpayers right now.
But I mentioned earlier that there was similar language and lack of specificity in one of the SEU RFPs I looked at. So I am wondering if this kind of RFP is the norm for Delaware or just the norm for a small group. Whatever the answer is, there are a bunch of problems here: 1) Procurement is as lax as payment options here; 2) checks and balances don’t seem to exist that would provide some routine review of these kinds of procurements to that they are released with some basic data (i.e. type of contract contemplated to be awarded) and are coherently organized towards the kind of evaluation planned (low-price, best value, 2-step, etc); 3) badly written RFPs almost always are a waste sink — those legendary $700.00 hammers from the Pentagon were not about overpaying for something you can get from Home Depot, but about stupid specifications that had to be met for something you could get off of the shelf at Home Depot.
The State cannot do business like this. Writing RFPs for work you can’t even understand the scope for before a contract gets awarded is a setup for poor use of Delaware taxpayer dollars. Because no one in the public (or press) can ever get a sense of what this contract is for, you can’t track how it is used. Because the awarders get to make it up as they go along, while it potentially gets more and more expensive for you.
And the people running the process have quite forgotten that they work for taxpayers, who have every right to look over what is being done and to ask questions about that. It is quite arrogant and certainly demonstrates a lack of any concern about very, very scarce state revenues.
“Finally, in the interest of full disclosure, you should know that we will not be bidding on the contract,”
Shouldn’t have bothered with that. In my experience with State Contacts, when there were questions allowed, there was a specific date that the questions needed to be in by, and the questions and answers were posted on the website for everyone.
It is symptomatic of the culture of waste in state government.
In my experience with State Contacts, when there were questions allowed, there was a specific date that the questions needed to be in by, and the questions and answers were posted on the website for everyone.
Which means that, if anyone sent in a proposal, they did so without asking any questions. It smells even worse now.
In procurement terms, this document resembles an RFQ (Request for Qualifications) more than an RFP.
An RFQ asks basic questions to qualify a pool of potential proposers, who will then receive the detailed RFP/SOW.
Which means that, if anyone sent in a proposal, they did so without asking any questions. It smells even worse now.
Indeed it does. Because that meant that there is someone out there who sees absolutely No Risk in responding to an RFP this deficient.
This isn’t even a very good RFQ — you still have no idea what it is that you are qualifying for, the type of contracts they contemplate for award, or an indication of the next steps for the actual RFP.
And Mark H points out another deficiency — no cut off date for questions.
“In procurement terms, this document resembles an RFQ (Request for Qualifications) more than an RFP. ”
anon, in strict procurement terms, if what they wanted is real 🙂 they probably should have issued an RFI (request for information). This is sometimes done when the agency in question knows that they need a good/service, etc. but isn’t sure what the specifications of the contract should be. This is done a lot in IT related projects.
Also, in lieu of a protracted Qand A session, a lot of contracts (PC Hardware/Network Services/Software specifically) have a mandatory pre-bid meeting. That way all of the vendors can ask the questions of the panel that will be doing the evaluation of the RFP.
IF you check the State’s contracting ( omb.delaware.gov/gss i think) website, when you look through the contracts, you may see some reference to the Q and A’s they’ve done.
We will see what happens. I have a friend who runs a Management Consulting firm and he is sending a proposal. Considering he is a state vendor i would assume that would get him a meeting. but to go from deadline for submissions to contract award in 24 hours? that’s pretty feby.
Good point (RFI vs. RFQ). I assume though that they already know what the job is, they just don’t want to say publicly.
“but to go from deadline for submissions to contract award in 24 hours”
Usually that’s about 30 days or so 🙂
Not when you’ve already decided who gets the bid.
yeah, just post the bid awarding on the website and be done with it 🙂
Or at least go through the motions much better than this. This RFP is pretty much a giant FU to the entire process.
And how often does this happen?
It wouldn’t stink as much if they did follow a real process. If a friend got the contract, you would only suspect nepotism. Right now, anyone who got the contract is automatically suspect.
I agree this also really stinks considering the state cutbacks. Another question I have – did the IC and her staff take the pay cuts that state workers are being asked to take?
Cass, are you new to Delaware? This is SOP. Mark nailed it – KWS wants to give work to a crony, pure and simple.
And how often does this happen?
Good question… note how you have to look for them agency-by-agency.
I hope Markell’s reengineering will include a listing of all state RFPs, with common standards applied to each.
“did the IC and her staff take the pay cuts that state workers are being asked to take?”
UI, don’t know about the IC, but most of the staff are merit employees, so yes.
“I hope Markell’s reengineering will include a listing of all state RFPs, with common standards applied to each.”
anon, most of these are covered by procurement law, which probably 🙂 wasn’t followed in this case
A big chunk of my professional career has been in reviewing, analyzing, writing proposals in response to RFPs — AND in developing and approving procurement packages for my own projects. You can tell — mostly — an RFP that is wired, but you have to be able to read the tea leaves in the requirement (mostly evaluation of a requirement) to see that. The RFPs aren’t deficient in anyway — just organized to get the result wanted. This RFP doesn’t even tell you the Scope of Work OR contract type but asks for a price. This is as blatant as I’ve ever seen — where they didn’t even try to pretend that there was a competition.
“This is as blatant as I’ve ever seen — where they didn’t even try to pretend that there was a competition.”
Cassandra, the biggest problem I see with this is: Is the IC office too stupid to see that this is a problem? Or do they not care that this is a problem? Or do they think they can get away with anything they want?
All three of these scenarios stink. 🙂
Agree with Cass, the request for a price without a description of work is the tipoff.
Re centralization of RFPs – from delaware.gov:
“Opportunities: RFIs, ITBs, and RFPs
Note: Many State Agencies and Delaware Government organizations release RFIs, ITBs, and RFPs that relate to their specific needs–the process is decentralized except Statewide purchasing, which is handled by the Government Support Services (OMB) team. The list below includes common issuers of RFIs, ITBs, and RFPs, but this list should not be considered inclusive.”
…and the code governing RFPs:
http://delcode.delaware.gov/title29/c069/sc03/index.shtml
The code states that an RFP must state “The type of materiel or services required and a description of the work involved.”
It would be a stretch to say this DOI RFP includes a description.
The arrogance of the IC’s office doesn’t surprise me. You guys are great….keep up the good work!
Mark H — the contact on this procurement is supposedly a lawyer, so I don’t think that ignorance of the process is the problem. I think that they do not expect anyone will look too hard at what they do since they are not only regulators but a revenue center.
Thank you anon for the links to the procurement code! That will come in handy. I am going to consult with Bulo about the best way to get the State Auditor’s attention on this. Plus, it may be worth a bid protest on this once the contract is awarded. They never answered questions and had someone who may not have an authorized role in the procurement communicate with us outside of the process. If this was a Federal procurement just that would be very bad news.
I’m wondering why the IC’s office even needs management consulting. It seems as though Matt Denn had it running pretty well when he left in January. Has everything unraveled in four months??
I’m wondering why the IC’s office even needs management consulting.
Which is something you could assess if there was a Scope of Work for thing.
“Plus, it may be worth a bid protest on this once the contract is awarded”
That’s why Jason should submit a bid…Can’t protest the bid if you don’t bid
Gould has written back saying (jn effect) that we have no right to find out anything about the bid and to even ask about it puts undo strain on the state’s finances.
More tomorrow.
Actually if I read the Delaware Code correctly, there is one piece of information you are entitled to gather about the RFP..
“(1) Bids shall be opened publicly at the time and place designated in the invitation to bid. The main purpose of the bid opening is to reveal the name(s) of the bidder(s)…”
I couldn’t think of a lovelier way to spend a morning than to sit in a DOI office and have them personally read me the names of the bidders (do they allow liveblogging?)
Now, I didn’t see an opening time or location in the RFP… that needs to be addressed immediately.
… another thing about the RFP… the cover page indicates closing date is May 25 3pm… but the inside text says closing is May 26 3pm, with interviews beginning May 27 (24 hours later, as noted before).
So assuming the May 25 date is a typo…. the “opening date” is May 26 sometime after 3pm.
Delaware law appears to require an opening time and place to be stated in the RFP.
However, there is no opening time or place noted in the RFP.
They really should post an amendment immediately to correct this. And while they are at it they can amend the May 25 date.
Also note that after the public opening, the public is entitled to inspect bid abstracts naming the bidders. And after contract signing, all the proposals are available for public inspection.
I do expect they would refuse to send you the data and would stick to the letter of the law by “inspect.” Before you show up it would be good to have an independent analysis of whether “inspection” permits copying.
I don’t think FOIA is required, although at this point they would probably make you jump through that hoop anyway just to be pains.
Jason, by chance, have you considered what I said, back in comment #3? I very much respect where you are going with this and the potential impact it really can make, but I seriously think you need an ally from bigger media, like Al. No, I don’t mean bigger as in appetite, but bigger as in media power. You guys can rock the freaking foundation if this is real teeth (which I think it is). The only potential problem is with Cass’s fear that this may be not so abnormal in the state’s process. Ungh, that is a terrible thought, but I can’t help but to think that it’s plausible. Dude, stick with it, but lift it up simultaneously.
I’d love to get other media types interested. I actually thought Rick Jensen might pick up on it. Anyway, I guess we should press harder to get it picked up by someone.
Well look at this — a rationally complete State of Delaware RFP.
Not claiming that this RFP is perfect, but it does provide scope, deadlines, detailed proposal instructions AND contract terms and conditions. (Still does not ask for enough cost data for analysis.) But at least we know that a better effort is out there.
Thanks anon, it may be worth looking for the clarification of the opening date and time just to go see if that is just as tawdry as this RFP.
There isn’t alot of flashy exposè with this yet — it is mostly a process deal about one defective RFP could show either 1) extreme procurement incompetence or 2) the beginnings of a sweetheart deal. Item 1 would likely need more examples and defective RFPs is not the kind of thing that sells a paper or keeps people at the radio until you can hook it to item 2. Or hook it to more fraud and/or waste. The slow roll by the RFP contact on even responding to us (and the crazy business of an employee of the DOI conducting business for the State not using a State email).
A Little History
Recently one of the bloggers asked if the DOI was being investigated by the FBI, a question tantamount to an accusation. In reality it was an NAIC accreditation team that presented the Commissioner with a report recommending full accreditation for the maximum time, 5 years. Before that it was the uninformed attack on the relaxation of reserving for life insurance companies which Red Water Lily checked out and was ultimately satisfied. Of course no mention of the Commissioner’s success in negotiating a 17% plus cut in workers comp rates.
The RFP
Last Saturday I met Jason Scott and invited him and other bloggers to the DOI for a meeting and an open ended discussion. I followed up with an e-mail and said that I would invite key staff to join me and at a later date do the same with the Commissioner. No answer from Jason. Then my colleague Michael Gould, who doesn’t know who Jason is, receives an unprofessionally written e-mail where Jason misrepresents himself as a potential vendor to an RFP that had been up on our sight for weeks asking Mike to answer several questions. The law does not require us to respond to a bogus vendor who misrepresents himself; our time and common sense will not permit us to and frankly, there are those who do have a real interest in good government, transparency and an interest in submitting a proposal to respond to.
Finally, the DOI does not spend a single penny of taxpayer money. On the contrary, it generates revenue in the form of premium taxes that goes directly to the General Fund in the amount of about $125 million annually. It costs about $25 million to run the Department all of it financed from the surcharge on financial examinations.
Elliott
This is an honest and honorable initiative that has been the Commissioner’ M.O and campaign promise as well as a recommendation by our transition that will start us on the critical path of reengineering the Department .
Elliott
Elliott, the department doesn’t need reengineering. It was doing just fine under Matt Denn before you clowns came in. Not once during Matt Denn’s tenure was his integrity, leadership, or competence called into question. You people have only yourselves to blame for being snookered by KWS and her misrepresentations, and your constant efforts to cover for her are apparently no longer enough. Pending YOUR BOSS, NOT YOU, coming up with a better explanation, so far it looks to me and everyone else like bid rigging, pure and simple.
Elliott, you should at least follow state procurement law when putting this out on the street. At best, it looks unprofessional (really ,does no one in your office have a calendar) to have this RFP on the street, at worst it looks very suspicious.
“Finally, the DOI does not spend a single penny of taxpayer money”
Technically it does, as money not put into the IC office goes into the general fund. And even so, that doesn’t excuse this comedy of an RFP. I know you have professional people in your office, maybe you should consider using them on occasion.
No problem Elliott.. I see your point of view.
Are you going to amend the RFP to include the time and location of the bid opening?
Or should we just show up at the office at 3pm next Tuesday?
If not, please make sure those bid abstracts are ready for inspection on 5/27. You could save us all some trouble by just posting them somewhere.
Jason,
Can you put up one of your polls about who gets this bid? I think there may only need to be one choice.
The only question is – which insurance company does the winning bidder work for?
Shorter Elliot:
“This is between us and our insurance company patrons. It’s none of your business. Go away. “
Elliott has some quite revisionist history there. Asking questions is not the same as an attack, and this may illustrate our core problem here. There are blogs who are delighted with talking points and manufactured outrage and this is not one of them.
We had a number of serious and quite seriously worded questions about this RFP that were submitted to the noted contact for that RFP. That, Elliot is the way that procurements are supposed to work — one person in the organization has the authority to speak for that procurement to make sure that everyone thinking of bidding gets treated the same. And while we are discussing authority to discuss — you’ve yet to explain how it is that you are doing state business from your personal email account.
As far as meetings go, you and I have had some back and forth over questions I had over a number of issues that you dropped the ball on. I’m quite right on the reserving requirements and the fact that you got Redwaterlily to back off some of her concerns (and she had caveats) doesn’t mean that you’ve addressed my points. Which were different.
We meet with lots of people but those meetings have pretty well defined agendas or goals. Your proposal had none of those and, frankly, the questions we asked didn’t need a meeting — just some answers. If you will tell us that you are answering those questions we can reconsider. But there isn’t much point for carving our time in any of our very busy professional and personal lives to sit with you while you won’t answer our questions in person.
And that business about not spending taxpayer money is very wrong. The revenues that the DOI takes is all belong to taxpayers. Unless you have an alternate story for this too. You are given a budget by the GA each year and are expected to live with it no matter how much revenue you generate. You are still accountable for how those funds are spent (and procured) and your little birdie should be telling you that we don’t have much tolerance for any part of the Delaware Government attempting to draw a curtain around their operations.
Just have the person authorized to answer the questions do so or explain how this so-called requirement is best served by this very defective RFP.
“Last Saturday I met Jason Scott and invited him and other bloggers to the DOI for a meeting and an open ended discussion. I followed up with an e-mail and said that I would invite key staff to join me and at a later date do the same with the Commissioner. No answer from Jason.”
Jason – Is this accurate?
If you posted all this stuff and b&m’d about the DOI while ignoring an invitation, I call B.S.
On the other hand, if Elliott is full of it, please continue the tilting at windmills at 90 mph.
There was an answer from Jason — that without an agenda (as in, something to be accomplished) we didn’t see the point in this meeting. All of us here already have pretty full professional and personal lives — we aren’t living in our parent’s basements with a ton of time on our hands. Besides, how is someone who never communicates with us via his official email address extending official invitations to meet with us on so-called official business?
That answer was for DE Liberal — I have no idea how the other invitees responded.
To Someone Named Arthur.
I understand you have a concern about a “rider” to insurance policies that has been adopted in every state but Delaware. Please send me the details to either my personal e-mail(ejacobson7@comcast.net) or my state e-mail (elliott.jacobson@state.de.us)
I might also suggest that in the future you simply call DOIand make an inquiry. By clicking “contact” on our web site you will arrive at all of our phone numbers.
The Meeting Invitation
I met Jason Scott at the Democratic Party Convention and invited him to a meeting at DOI. He accepted and gave me his e-mail address. No agenda was asked for. Two days later I sent an e-mailto Jason asking for time, dates and locations, suggesting other bloggers to invite and saying staff would be on the phone or in person depending where it was held. I indicated the meeting would be “open-ended” which meant “fire away”. If an agenda was necessary all Jason and Cassandra had to do was ask. I also said that we would invite them back at a later date when the Commissioner would attend.
Elliott – still no amendment posted naming the time and location of the public bid opening. So 3pm at the office then?
Shorter Elliot. I love my fig leaf. I’m going to wear this one out.
So… 3:00 at 841 Silver Lake Blvd. Dover, DE 19904 shall interested parties ask for Elliot or Gould?
And we have asked for an agenda — one that was refused saying that anything less than open-ended was too restrictive for the DOI.
I can publish that email.
And as long as we still have those multiple questions on that RFP — ones that could certainly be answered here or via email — it looks from here that the DOI is officially ignoring our questions. Why would we take time off from our respective jobs to be ignored in person?