Legislative Pre-Game Show Plus Rant: Tuesday, April 20, 2010
OK, folks, it’s rant time. The obligatory and halfhearted hearing into the Insurance Commissioner’s office can only be described as pathetic.
Based on published reports and what was reported at DL, there appeared to have been next-to-no preparation by the respective committee members. Little in the way of followup questions. And the weak post-hearing handwringing that the General Assembly really can’t do much because the IC’s office is a constitutionally-separate office.
Bullshit. There is absolutely no reason why The General Assembly can’t craft legislation to, for example, require the IC’s office to comply with contractual and procurement laws. None. How do you think the IC’s office got its powers in the first place? That’s right, by a little something called laws created by lawmakers, aka legislators. Every year, the IC’s office brings its own legislative agenda to the General Assembly. There is no reason why the General Assembly can’t or shouldn’t enact an agenda designed to ensure that the IC’s office works on behalf of the people, not just the insurance companies.
Well, actually, there is a reason. One incentive for seeking chairmanships of committees ‘regulating’ banking and insurance is to ‘insure’ that you can build hefty war chests. For example, those of you who are disappointed in Bryon Short’s performance here should be prepared to be disappointed in the future. He has the ‘aw-shucks’ amiability of Tom Carper circa 1982, a tabula rasa quality upon which those seeking progressivism could project him as a progressive, and the same empathy for banks and insurance companies as his former employer. This is not surprising as he worked for Carper and emerged fully-formed from the Ed Freel Candidate Factory. Just remember this: When the opportunity came to stand up for those who have been hurt by the BC/BS preauthorization denials, he threw up his hands and said there was nothing he could do. The chair of the committee. Nothing he can do. One can understand Monsignor Greg ‘100 Incidents Do Not Constitute a Trend” Lavelle shilling for the plutocrats. But once again, ‘Democrats’ at best turned and ran away from the situation.
In fairness, Short might have been influenced by the Governor’s office, which was likely discomfitted by the fact that preauthorization was about to be peddled as part of its state health care cost savings plans. Fair enough. Tell us again what it means to be a Democrat? When it comes to protecting corporate interests at the expense of consumers, there ain’t a dime’s worth of difference between the two parties.
And Karen Weldin Stewart is still utterly unfit to hold public office. However, nobody but the public will suffer by her reign of incompetence. Certainly not the legislators raking in the banking and insurance bucks.
*Sigh*
Once again, virtually the only bill of interest that could be considered today is Pete Schwartzkopf’s attempt to expand casino gambling in Delaware by at least two casinos. The bill is currently laid on the Speaker’s Table, which means it can be brought up for consideration any time at the request of the sponsor. If Hazel Plant is back in attendance and/or if some negotiations have yielded a compromise, then maybe it will be considered soon. Here is the full House agenda.
At least the House agenda offers us another teaching opportunity. You will notice a ‘Consent Agenda’ consisting of two bills listed. Bills placed on a consent agenda are generally considered to be noncontroversial bills (in this case, two House bills returning to the House with Senate amendments). An objection by any member of the body automatically removes a bill from the consent agenda.
On to the Senate Agenda. ‘Nuff said.
See ya tomorrow.
Tags: Bryon Short, casino gambling, Delaware General Assembly, Karen Weldin Stewart, Pete Schwartzkopf
Nice rant about the IC hearing. Yeah, I’m tired of hearing there’s nothing we can do about it. I’m tired of being robbed by politicians. I think there’s at least 2 issues the GA should address: the pay scandal from the GA GOP and the IC Office scandal. We shouldn’t have to wait until the House changes parties to see that we’re paying people that don’t show up and if there’s a hiring loophole for the IC’s office – close it.
Excellent summary. Here is the latest from CRI about Vermont’s Captives office to which idiot KWS would like to compare herself, with the usual impeccable research by Lee Williams and a second writer:
http://criblog.wordpress.com/2010/04/19/the-vermont-model/
Also: I remember someone on this blog mentioning before the election that KWS would be the worst IC in Delaware history and that the office would go down within a year and a half to two years because of incompetence and corruption. We’re right on schedule, so let’s hope the GA does something, anything to stop the hemorraghing of money out of the IC’s office.
if there’s a hiring loophole for the IC’s office – close it.
The hiring loophole exists for the entire state government, not just OIC. KWS is simply the one getting the attention at the moment. Next time it could be some other office. The loophole is a scandal factory.
The loophole is in Subchapter VI of Title 29 – next to no competitive bidding or public transparency is required for professional services. The law is badly in need of reform and updating.
The loophole sections of code (§ 6981 and § 6982) were created by:
70 Del. Laws, c. 601, § 9.; and
59 Del. Laws, c. 573, § 1; 60 Del. Laws, c. 589, § 1; 70 Del. Laws, c. 601, § 9.;
Those laws were passed before the archives went online, so anybody with a little time and access to a law library can go look those up in the dead-tree edition, and find out who sponsored them and when.
UI, don’t forget…we STILL haven’t seen the long-awaited and long-promised records on legislative travel. Maybe Lee Williams could…oops, never mind.
what about the allegation of KWS not owning her own vehicle and using her state car 24/7? This may be a minor offense to most, but to me it just is another example of her blatant disregard of the public trust. Plus, gas and maintenance of state vehicles does add up…
Seems to me KWS could have bought her own car by now, making over $100K a year. Not bad for a high school drop out. She didn’t have a car when she was elected because she had no job, no money, no credit. Remember those judgments against her by the credit card companies you all talked about at length? The IC’s office came just in the nick of time for her. As she said at that obscene swearing-in party at the Dupont (who paid for that…do we know yet?), hers is a “rags to riches” story. Literally.
What? No post about the NJ demanding Phillips to resign as Sussex County Councilman.
These eight comments are the smallest number ever posted on any thread about KWS. Is it a sign of resignation, boredom, acceptance of the futility of it all, or what? It wouldn’t be surprising after the legislators’ ridiculous lukewarm responses and obvious lack of interest in doing anything substantive to stop this corrupt idiot from continuing to drain state coffers.
The most interesting comment on this thread is anon@11:07pm. Well worth a follow up. The money being drained out of DelDOT every year for no-bid consultancies, for example, has a vastly more shocking price tag than anything in the IC Dept. (Isn’t there a bill proposed to force consultant hires onto the state web site?)
The corruption in our state bureaucracy should be tackled methodically and it should start with a public drive to insist that these loopholes in the laws (anon@11:07pm) be remedied.
Karen still has three years to bring some hoped-for efficacy to the Captive Insurance Bureau and complete the vision that started decades ago and was given new life under Matt Denn. I am not going to quibble here over her Dept. hires and some of the choices she has made. They speak for themselves and she’ll sink or swim on the merits.
But I will say that I believe that Anon2 is a GOPerhead who is hoping that KWS (a la anon@11:02am) will be a self-fulfilling prophecy and I am certain that the CRI is being employed to try to ensure it. DE GOP will gnaw at any weak links to try and break through a statewide hole in hopes to grab it for themselves. I believe that the attacks on Flowers are coming from the DE GOP to that same end.
FYI anony@1:18pm, the lies and distortions that follow KWS (or Flowers for that matter) don’t help persuade people over to ‘your side’ they just make you look cheap and desparate and somewhat mental.
Lastly, ‘Bulo has hit the nail on why the legis was soft on KWS insofar as the Markell administration’s agenda.
I still haven’t made it to a law library, but am doing a bit of online research as time permits.
The law in question is the Delaware Procurement Act, which was amended in 1996 to require public bidding for professional services… “public bidding” consisting basically of taking an ad out in a newspaper. This meager requirement was actually an improvement at the time.
There are some additional selection requirements for engineering and architecture consulting, mostly focused on price, which presumably cover DelDOT awards (§ 6982)
Guess who has already proposed reforming the procurement law?
Answer: AG Carl Danberg, 2006.
I’ve actually bid on A/E services contracts for DelDOT in a previous life. And the “take an ad in the newspaper” approach is not too much different from what the Feds do for A/E services. They have to publically publish a Request for Qualifications and that “ad” tells you what data you have to provide for them to review your capabilities for the work. For the Feds, it is called a Brooks Bill procurement and basically it removes price as a qualification for the acquisition of engineering and architecture services which has been practice for as long as I’ve been in the business. When you respond to these “ads” you are typically required to submit on a federal form SF 254/255 or SF330 or similar modified for a local use. Procureing these kinds of professional services this way has been SOP for almost 60 years everywhere.
That may be so for the kind of work that you do, Cass. But the word is that there are consultants sucking the blood out of the transportation department by the millions in no bid awards. Ask Andye Daley for the deets. In the Minner era, Nathan burned through 100 million in one year alone in consultant payouts.
At a minimum, reform for large professional services would consist of:
Require an RFP (which may be preceded by an RFQ)
RFP must include contract timeline
Post RFQ/RFP on state web site
Public opening of bids
Post winners on state web site
It wouldn’t necessarily prevent cronyism but it would make it more transparent.
I can also buy the argument that some forms of consulting don’t lend themselves to an RFP. Even so there needs to be some document stating the work to be performed. A terse ad in the paper won’t cut it, nor does the mushy RFP from KWSs office. There needs to be a clear statement of work.
This procurement process is the same for the full range of engineering or architecture services. And it is SOP everywhere. The design of a project is not like buying law services. First, firms need to commit to a firm fixed price task. The firm takes most of the risk here which is why the final SOW is negotiated after award as is project cost and fee. Second, a complete scope for a design task is basically the design. There’s no point in designing it just to bid it out. Third, you are up against a community of people who need to maintain E&O insurance in order to practice. The cost of this insurance is a massive expense and NO ONE puts their own E&O insurance on the line for someone else’s design effort.
Which isn’t to say that improvements can’t be made, but you won’t get there with an rfp.
Yes, of course… if the bid is for producing a design, then that is what the description of work should say. The point is to eliminate the no-bid contracts, and the “content-free” RFPs like KWS’s.
It isn’t a bid as in buying a case of canned goods or electrical services. The owner has to say what it is that they are looking to build, perhaps have some detail on a desired end state, and that is what the *ad* tells you. when you submit your quals, you are submitting quals specific to that work. So that if what is wanted is a bridge, folks with experience road building or hospital building just won’t qualify. Costs get negotiated after an award, but if you can’t come to terms on price, then the owner goes to the next highest qualifier to negotiate price.
But I am specifically speaking about A/E contracts of the kind DelDOT would procure. The services KWS was procuring –especially given the payment terms — definitely can be scoped well in advance and with some market research to get a sense of the market price.