DOI Wired RFP Episode 4 – The Finale
Like many bloggers, I blog in a stolen five minutes here, a morning off there. On the afternoon of May 18th I found this rather strange RFP on Karen Weldin Stewart’s web site.
Not knowing much about the state RFP process – but knowing that we are having a bit of a budget crisis in this state, I observed, “I thought (KWS) was being paid to run the Insurance Commissioner’s Office. I must have been wrong about that though since they are sending out an RFP asking for a “management consultant” to …you know…consult…”
The DOI anticipates that, after conducting interviews, it will select a firm to evaluate the DOI’s management efficiencies and weaknesses.
The RFP was such a vacuous muddle that it looked to many as if it was not an honest request for bidders, but a cover for some insider money transfer. I expressed that sentiment to the contact listed on the bid, Michael Gould, Esquire.
If the purpose of the RFP, however, is to allow connected insiders to wax eloquent about their consulting prowess we could certainly do that.
Unfortunately, that bloggy snark was misplaced because as people looked at the steaming piece of shit RFP, a great many significant questions were raised. Among them:
- Given that there is a moratorium on new consulting contracts with the State of Delaware during the Budget crisis, is there any possibility that award of this contract could be affected by this moratorium?
- How could any bidder form price or staff this proposal without a detailed Scope of Work for this project?
- How could the DOI be ready to interview and negotiate a contract 24 hours after receipt of the proposals?
Michael Gould Esquire did not respond. However, on May 20th Elliot Jacobson responded, Not with answers to any of the questions, but pre-qualification questions and with an irrelevant talking point which he has since repeated like a mantra.
Not a red cent of taxpayer money is used for anything related to the Department of Insurance. In short the Department is self funded.
I followed up on my initial email to Michael Gould Esquire and, he responded to that second email basically telling me to fuck off:
No doubt you are aware of the State’s current financial situation. As a taxpayer, you can appreciate that it would be a wasteful misuse of State resources to answer questions raised by a party that has no interest in responding to the RFP.
I didn’t post Michael Gould Esquire’s flat refusal to respond to questions about the sketchy RFP, but instead posted Elliot’s nearly simultaneous email. It was classy.
From: “Elliott Jacobson”
Date: May 21, 2009 10:29:28 PM EDT
To: “‘Jason33″
Subject: RE: RFPWhose water are you carrying?
Apparently I have some axe to grind, when all along I thought I was just a guy who had the nerve to point out that KWS’s office put out a shitty RFP that looks for all the world like a Harris McDowell type insider money transfer.
So that is where is stands. The response(s) the to RFP will be opened today at some undisclosed time at some undisclosed location. Within 24 hours, the firm that the RFP was written for (perhaps the firm that wrote it?) will get the job and begin billing us.
What will they do for the money we will be paying them? We still don’t know. How much will they be raking in off this deal? It is any one’s guess. Will this transparent fraud catch the attention of anyone with the juice to put the brakes on it? That remains to be seen.
I know one thing. Keeping an eye on the shady cabal pulling the strings in the Insurance Commissioner’s Office will keep bloggers very busy over the next few years.
Nice high-level summary, J. I still don’t get with “meeting the bloggers” over this RFP issue, though. Meeting with bloggers tends to be more of presenting the office, how it works, what it does, and its intermingling with the constituency. Arranging this meeting over a specific issue just gives me a 100% feeling that it spun into total CYA mode. If the meeting does happen, keep your skepticism in full, high gear, but I’m thinking you don’t need me to tell you that.
Good work so far, J!
P.S.: Like many bloggers, I blog in a stolen five minutes here…
Man, you aren’t kidding. Trying to detox as we speak, but you can see I already fell off that wagon. Shoot, I don’t think I have an unbroken bone left in my body, for how many times I fell off that wagon!
If we can get the names of the bidders today or early tomorrow we can have a rousing discussion before the contract is signed.
The law requires a public bid opening…. I can’t do it personally but if you are able, go to the IC office in Dover at 3pm today and get the names of the bidders. If they turn you away, note carefully what they say and who said it.
If you can’t make it today, the law also requires them to make “bid abstracts” (containing the name of the bidder) available for public inspection after the bid opening. In Delaware public inspection includes the right to copy the material, but I doubt the office will be very generous in allowing use of its copier, so bring a notepad or perhaps a good digital camera.
Thanks for the tips, anon.
That is a really great summary, Jason.
I guess I’m still puzzled by the whole “meet with the bloggers” issue. What is it that he will impart in a meeting that he can’t in a public forum like this one? I think we’ve already figured out their justification – they are a cost center so they can hire if they want. That’s what he seems to be saying. Anyone from the IC’s office is perfectly free to post here if we have this wrong. I don’t see how anything other than answering the questions above will satisfy anyone here. So, why don’t they?
Obama expected to announce Sotomayer to Supreme Court at 10:15 am. A very calculating move. Female. Hispanic. Slighly left of center. It will make it very difficult for th e republicans to use her as a platform to rally their base or stall the nominee. An easy confirmation and saves a big battle for another day. Smart move.
1) Ins. Dept. charges insurance companies. The charge, as stated by Elliot, exceeds the operating cost, leaving money left over that is returned to the State.
Question: So how does the Ins. Dept. stop sending money back to the State to defray State budget demands?
Answer: Invent a consulting contract where the excess operating revenues are spent on whomever gets the consulting contract.
Question: What if there is no real need for a ‘consulting’ contract?
Answer: Make sure the the job requirements of the consulting contract are vague and tenuous. That way, any investigation into whether the job bid is being performed will not yield any results. For instance, a review of the “consultant” might find that the consultant is not performing any IT work. The defense is that the bid requirements do not specifically include any IT demands. Nor demands for audits. Nor demands for efficiency review, etc. In other words, if there is no job description, you can’t prove that the consultant isn’t performing what was asked by the RFP.
Question: What is the purpose of this scheme?
Answer: To keep money that should be used by the State for our hurting budget.
Question: How can we hire “wired” insiders and give them no-show jobs?
Answer: Create a bullshit RFP.
Question: What if bloggers raise hell about this abuse of State money?
Answer: Make sure all public information is so vague that no definitive findings can be made.
The point about DOI revenue reverting to the General Fund is not as strong as it seems. The devil is in the details, and you will have to look at the breakdown of what portion of revenue is generated by the examination fees.
Yes the law requires that excess DOI revenue revert to the General Fund… but the law also requires that the following year, exam fees be reduced to reflect the lower expenses.
So the law contains a built-in mechanism to keep the examination fees from going into the General Fund.
There is a strong public interest here, but not necessarily a budgetary interest.
The bigger danger of this RFP is not the expense, but the possibility that the report of this consultant will alter enforcement or policy of DOI in a way that goes against the public interest.
Also, DOI imposes other fees and taxes on insurance companies that do revert to the General Fund without restriction. So like I said, the devil is in the details, and it would take a pretty wonkish audit to follow the money.
The wqhole argument that it is the IC’s money is pretty stupid.
It is like saying that the State Police can set up road blocks and confiscate cars, then sell them and use the money to buy helicopters.
Okay. That was a bad example.
They’re already paying an ‘Advisor to the Insurance Commissioner’, Michael Gould, Esq.
Now, they’re gonna hire a ‘Consultant to the Insurance Commissioner’ through an RFP.
They’re also paying a ‘Mouthpiece to the Insurance Commissioner’ in Elliott Jacobson.
The IC herself has not made any public comments nor made herself available to the press since, when exactly?
But when it comes to the most important division within the IC’s office, The Bureau of Company Examination, Rehabilitation and Guaranty, or BERG, the one charged with the responsibility “for assuring the financial health and stability of insurance companies in Delaware”, the director’s position is currently held by, and ‘bulo quotes from the IC’s own website: ‘Director Vacant’.
Here’s how BERG is supposed to ensure the health and stability of Delaware’s insurers, again from the IC website: “It does so by analyzing and assessing the financial condition of insurance companies domesticated and doing business in Delaware in order to protect consumers and, if necessary, by managing, rehabilitating or liquidating financially-impaired insurers.”
So, the Delaware agency charged with this vital function is leaderless at a time of industry economic turmoil, and a mystery RFP for an undefined purpose is being fast-tracked.
Just what the bleep will it take for whatever passes for the press in this state to investigate this? As bloggers, there ARE limits to their investigative resources. Why is this story being ignored by the MSM?
To ‘bulo, the IC Office looks more and more like a rogue office being run by a bunch of bootlicking sycophants and a willfully-clueless IC. SOMEONE needs to shine a light on this.
Just what the bleep will it take for whatever passes for the press in this state to investigate this?
‘Bulo makes a funny.
The IC has never made a public comment herself since she was sworn in because she doesn’t know how. The number of shadow “commissioners” behind incompetent KWS isn’t limited to the three that ‘Bulo named in #9 above. She also has a regulatory expert from Chicago named Steve Kiely (or something like that) who travels back and forth to Delaware at state expense. That brings us back to Jason330’s original question when all this started: What exactly does the insurance commissioner do for her $140-150K per year salary? Besides being the front for a very shady cabal, of course.
Yes, I agree, Jason, that the “it’s the IC’s money” is a dumb argument. They are a government agency, doing the people’s business. They are getting paid by our tax revenue, so they actually work for us.
There is not an offer to meet re: this FRP. This offer to meet was before Jason looked at the RFP and there was a quick description of the meeting of answering questions. After the invite, Jason started looking at this RFP. That is when this meeting invite was brought upon as a bit of defection.
Having a meeting is fine, it just doesn’t seem to have a point. They won’t answer the questions we have written down on this RFP, so what questions will they answer? I’m certainly not taking time from work for a boondoggle. And it isn’t like we wouldn’t want to record this meeting and post it up — so whether they answer questions in writing or in person the answers will be public.
Bulo’s comment @9 is excellent — it certainly seems that the DOI ought to finish getting its team in place before hiring people to change processes of whatever they are buying. And I’m going to be really mad if the DOI is paying someone to commute from Chicago. Gov Markell did call for travel to be vastly curtailed — enough so that Stephanie McClellan went to a meeting on Delaware’s participation in the Climate Prosperity Project on her own dime. (At least that was what was reported at the time.)
So what does look true about the DOI is that they are apparently the only office in the state that does not need to live with the budget restrictions of the rest of the state and local governments and this is a thing that EVERYONE ought to be very concerned over.
Why should anyone meet with the IC’s mouthpiece?
‘Bulo, for one, would love to meet w/the IC, on the record, and ask her the questions that her mindless minions refuse to answer on her behalf.
Elliott: Do you think you could set that up for us? And, if not, why not? She is a public official. When will she be sufficiently programmed to answer questions about the office she purportedly runs?
‘Bulo: I wouldn’t hold my breath if I were you. If there’s a meeting it definitely won’t be a one on one. Her handlers won’t allow it. But in all likelihood it’s not going to happen in the first place.
Hey, she can meet just one of us, as long as we get to report on what she says. Which one of us is least intimidating?
Check out the poll.
It is no big deal because the IC’s office makes its own money, so they can spend it on whatever they want.
I wonder if the three people who clicked on that response were named Karen, Michael or Elliot?
Another thing to wonder about: If someone should get fired like 21 people in the poll suggested, who should/will it be?
Here is the thing and i stated have stated it over an over again..nothing will happen and KWS wins. She got what she wanted – full time employment finally and now can do whatever she wants.
Not only full time employment, but full time insurance-related employment (as opposed to working at Lowes or other retail minimum wage jobs). Except for working for the IC’s office in the late 80’s, that’s a first for her.
and a mystery RFP for an undefined purpose is being fast-tracked.
I’ll say it again. The job has already been set up for a Delaware insider or a prominent Delaware democrat.
The job description is too vague. It’s a set-up, possibly for someone to come in and actually oversee and manage the department for the Dem party. Don’t think the Dems aren’t worried about KWS lack of knowledge, experience, financial expertise, Insurance expertise, management ability and so forth. They are. Not to mention she ain’t all that bright.
We should know the name of the lucky insider in an hour or so.
Better not be Rway.
John Brady?
Didn’t mean to cast any aspersions on John Brady, on the contrary. He would be a worthy replacement for KWS, if that’s what’s going to happen.
Come on Gabriel, that’s nuts. Let anonymous blogging retain whatever tattered shreds of credibility and dignity it may have left.
Sorry about that. Thoughtless of me.
So who was it?
Elliot says that he’ll tell me as soon as he knows.
His personal email must have been caught up in your spam filter, J. You better check!
The A.G. issued an opinion in 2004 on whether the IC’s office must follow state procurement laws for personal services. The answer was that it does not because the department generates its own revenue through taxes on insurance companies. This will probably be what Elliott or one of the other stooges will tell us when they get good and ready.
http://www.allbusiness.com/north-america/united-states-delaware/1126192-1.html
Can someone start a “Dump KWS” blog like the one on Michelle Bachman in Minnesota?
Thanks for the info Gerard. I think the IC office should worry about appearances of hiring someone when state workers are taking a pay cut. I just looks bad, bad, bad.
Sonafabitch.
So it’s up to the GA to bring DOI back under the procurement law. Procurement reform anyone? Paging John Kowalko….
DOI aside, there is also an oddity in the DE Code. For material goods or non professional services, a standard RFP process is required.
But for large professional services contracts, they don’t have to issue an RFP at all, and aren’t required to disclose much of anything to the public. I don’t think even the SEU RFP was required under this law.
Delaware is lacking a law that says “If you are going to issue an RFP, here are the rules.”
And now, here is the really weird part: There appears to be two requirements missing from the code. It states that agencies shall follow requirements 1-5, but then only lists 3 requirements. There appears to be 2 requirements missing from the code.
It’s no doubt a political plum, payback for campaign contributions or other favors. Since apparently this joke of an IC and her cohorts don’t have to account to anyone, their choice can be a blatantly corrupt one and it looks like there’s nothing we can do about it. That’s probably why the MSM hasn’t made an issue of this. All of it is pretty outrageous even for Delaware.