Some lawmakers profit off state bids

Some lawmakers profit off state bids

BY MICHAEL R. WICKLINE

Posted on Sunday, November 18, 2007

http://www.nwanews.com/adg/News/208009/

Several companies with ties to state legislators have contracts with the
state.

The deals involve more than $ 700, 000, most of the contracts were
awarded after competitive bidding, the arrangements are legal, and they
were publicly disclosed in recent reports to lawmakers because of a law
the Legislature enacted this year.

Sen. Percy Malone, an Arkadelphia Democrat and a legislator since 1995,
is president and the majority stock owner of W. P. Malone Inc., which
owns Pharmacy Care of Arkansas.

That company does business as Allcare Pharmacy, which has a $ 25,
000-a-year pharmacy services contract with the Department of Human
Services’ Alexander, Arkadelphia and Jonesboro Human Development
Centers, said the state’s procurement director, Joe Giddis. It was
awarded Jan. 20, 2005.

Allcare also has had a contract with the department for the Arkansas
Health Center at Benton since July 2004, said Julie Munsell, a spokesman
for the department. That’s for $ 200, 000 a year, Giddis said.

Allcare was paid $ 437, 890 from July 2004 to Nov. 8 this year for drugs
under the contract, Munsell said.

The firm got the contracts by submitting proposals with the cheapest
prices, Giddis said.

Allcare also is one of the state’s 20, 000 or so Medicaid providers,
Munsell said. In that role, Allcare fills prescriptions to Medicaid
recipients at several drug stores and at some nursing homes in addition
to those at the three human development centers and the health center.

The firm was paid $ 2. 89 million last fiscal year to provide
prescription drugs covered by Medicaid to about 4, 400 Medicaid
recipients, Munsell said. State officials are unable to determine how
many of these recipients are at the centers with which Allcare has
contracts, nor how much of the $ 2. 8 million was for recipients at the
centers.

“As a citizen legislator, I have a right as much as anybody to bid,�
said Malone.

Another legislator with business ties to the state is first-term Rep.
Barry Hyde, D-North Little Rock. Hydco Inc., 90 percent owned by Hyde,
has a $ 589, 499 contract for construction of an administrative building
at the University of Arkansas Division of Agriculture fruit substation
in Clarksville, said David Martinson, associate vice chancellor for
business affairs at UA’s Fayetteville campus.

Hydco Inc. submitted the lowest bid among several bids, Martinson said.

Rep. Bruce Maloch, D-Magnolia, is chief operating officer for Farmers
Bank & Trust Co. of Magnolia, which has a banking services contract with
Southern Arkansas University at Magnolia, according to Darrell Morrison,
SAU’s vice president for finance.

The contract runs from July 1, 2006, to June 30, 2010. A previous
contract between them lasted five years, Morrison said.

Maloch has been in the House since 2005. He said he submitted the bank’s
proposals both before his service in the Legislature and since he has
been in the General Assembly.

The contract for deposits totaling about $ 10 million was awarded to
Farmers because the bank offered the highest interest rates on the
deposits and the lowest service fees among a few bidders, Morrison said.
The bank paid the university $ 252, 886 in interest last fiscal year, he
said, and the fees are less than $ 1, 000 a year.

ACT 567 The law requiring the disclosure of such contracts is Act 567 of
2007. State Rep. Sid Rosenbaum, R-Little Rock, sponsored it. Among other
things, it required each state agency on or before Oct. 1, 2007, to
report to the Legislative Council all contracts entered into in the
previous five years with legislators, their spouses or with any business
in which a lawmaker or his spouse is an officer, a director or a
stockholder owning more than 10 percent of the stock in the business. “I
just felt that if you are a legislator and doing business with the
state, you need to disclose that,� Rosenbaum said. “All the legislators
I talked to thought this was a good idea.� He said the legislation
wasn’t aimed at any particular lawmakers or contracts. An executive
order issued in 1998 when Mike Huckabee was governor and Act 34 of 1999
includes similar disclosure requirements.

Rosenbaum said he wasn’t familiar with that executive order nor aware of
that law. To comply with Act 567, state officials also disclosed a
proposed $ 12, 456 Insurance Department contract with Area Agency on
Aging of Western Arkansas, a nonprofit group whose president and chief
executive officer is state Rep. Jim Medley, R-Fort Smith. The contract
is to educate Medicare recipients about Medicare prescription drug
plans. The prior approval of the council and the governor is required
for the contract under the executive order issued by Huckabee, said
Richard Weiss, director of the state Department of Finance and
Administration. The council signed off on the contract after state
Insurance Commissioner Julie Bowman explained that the department has
similar contracts with the other agencies on aging across the state.
Medley, who has worked for 30 years for the western Arkansas agency, has
been in the House since 2003.

EXECUTIVE ORDER In 1998, Huckabee issued an order prohibiting most state
agencies from hiring lawmakers and limiting the business state agencies
can do with lawmakers, constitutional officers, state employees and
their relatives.

In 1999, the Legislature enacted a law designed to end self-dealing
among constitutional officers and legislators, ending more than a year’s
work by some lawmakers, including Mike Beebe, who now is governor.

When state contracts are competitively bid and awarded to a
constitutional officer or legislator or his spouse or an entity in which
they hold an ownership interest of more than 10 percent, there is no
requirement under Huckabee’s executive order for the contract to be
approved by the council. That’s because it was awarded through open
competition, said Giddis.

The approval of the council and the governor is required when the
contract is awarded on “a sole source� basis without competitive
bidding, he said.

Those arrangements do not exhaust the types of deals with entities in
which legislators have interests. Some legislators or their relatives
also have leases with state agencies. Some of them predate the start of
the lawmakers ’ time in the General Assembly.

One such lawmaker is Malone. His firm leases 1, 900 square feet in
Arkadelphia to the state Department of Workforce Services for $ 15, 200
a year, said Anne Laidlaw, director of the Arkansas Building Authority,
a state agency that oversees state office rentals.

The terms were negotiated through Fred Harris, vice president for W. P.
Malone Inc., effective Aug. 1, 1997, for six years, Laidlaw said. The
lease was renewed in 2003.

The original lease started in 1989, Laidlaw said, six years before
Malone was a legislator.

Malone’s firm also is a subcontractor to the Department of Correction
for inmate medical care, Giddis said. That arrangement, too, began
before he was a legislator, Malone said.

The firm provides prescription drugs and other services through
Correctional Medical Services of St. Louis. He and Correctional Medical
Services declined to say how much business Allcare does each year with
Correctional Medical Services.

“It’s proprietary [information ],� Malone said.






CURRENTLY CHILD PROTECTIVE SERVICES VIOLATES MORE CIVIL RIGHTS ON A
DAILY BASIS THEN ALL OTHER AGENCIES COMBINED INCLUDING THE NSA / CIA
WIRETAPPING PROGRAM....

CPS Does not protect children...
It is sickening how many children are subject to abuse, neglect and even
killed at the hands of Child Protective Services.

every parent should read this .pdf from
connecticut dcf watch...

http://www.connecticutdcfwatch.com/8x11.pdf

http://www.connecticutdcfwatch.com

Number of Cases per 100,000 children in the US
These numbers come from The National Center on
Child Abuse and Neglect in Washington. (NCCAN)
Recent numbers have increased significantly for CPS

*Perpetrators of Maltreatment*

Physical Abuse CPS 160, Parents 59
Sexual Abuse CPS 112, Parents 13
Neglect CPS 410, Parents 241
Medical Neglect CPS 14 Parents 12
Fatalities CPS 6.4, Parents 1.5

Imagine that, 6.4 children die at the hands of the very agencies that
are supposed to protect them and only 1.5 at the hands of parents per
100,000 children. CPS perpetrates more abuse, neglect, and sexual abuse
and kills more children then parents in the United States. If the
citizens of this country hold CPS to the same standards that they hold
parents too. No judge should ever put another child in the hands of ANY
government agency because CPS nationwide is guilty of more harm and
death than any human being combined. CPS nationwide is guilty of more
human rights violations and deaths of children then the homes from which
they were removed. When are the judges going to wake up and see that
they are sending children to their death and a life of abuse when
children are removed from safe homes based on the mere opinion of a
bunch of social workers.


CHILD PROTECTIVE SERVICES, HAPPILY DESTROYING THOUSANDS OF INNOCENT
FAMILIES YEARLY NATIONWIDE AND COMING TO YOU'RE HOME SOON...


BE SURE TO FIND OUT WHERE YOUR CANDIDATES STANDS ON THE ISSUE OF
REFORMING OR ABOLISHING CHILD PROTECTIVE SERVICES ("MAKE YOUR CANDIDATES
TAKE A STAND ON THIS ISSUE.") THEN REMEMBER TO VOTE ACCORDINGLY IF THEY
ARE "FAMILY UNFRIENDLY" IN THE NEXT ELECTION...