More Questions for Marotta & DOA

The Associated Press did a pretty thorough job covering yesterday’s Joint Finance Committee meeting featuring the current and former DOA Secretaries, but the hearing itself left me with more questions than it answered.

Following are excerpts from the AP story and a few follow up questions reporters might want to ask when they have a chance.

"We want to make sure that nothing like this ever happens again," current Administration Secretary Steve Bablitch told lawmakers, describing the case as an isolated incident.

Exactly what did happen and shouldn’t we make sure it didn’t happen in other procurements under this Administration? If this was an isolated incident, then the system is working and what we really need is more transparency from DOA.

Marotta acknowledged he met with Adelman officials who were pushing a consolidation of the state's travel business in 2004. He said administration officials often meet with companies pitching ideas, but "as soon as that process begins to determine who is being selected, we stay out of that."

"We turn it over to people who are procurement experts," he said.

At what point does Marotta consider the process underway and who are the “procurement experts?”

Why did DOA hire Academic Travel Consultants (ATC) out of California to advise them on the state travel consolidation contract - and then proceed to completely ignore their advice and micro-manage the project inside DOA? Why did the taxpayers spend $175,000 for ATC to give advice that DOA clearly ignored?

He (Marotta) said when he received inquiries from companies during a contract competition; he would always refer the calls to purchasing experts. He said he followed that rule "without exception" during his tenure.

How common was it for the DOA Secretary to receive calls from companies who were in the process of bidding on a state contract? Section 1.7 of an RFP specifically states: “Any contact with State employees concerning this RFP is prohibited, except as authorized by the RFP manager during the period from the state of release of the RFP until the notice of intent to contract is released.”

If Adelman attempted to contact a state employee other than the manager, they violated the RFP, and Marotta --- - or whoever used his direct line ---arguably violated it by returning the call and talking for seven minutes.

If Marotta knew he wasn’t suppose to talk to Adelman Travel, why didn’t he direct the procurement manager to follow up on the phone calls?

Why did it take seven minutes to tell Adelman that he could not discuss the RFP with them? Finally, why is there no record of any of the calls in the Adelman file as required by the purchasing manual?

And just out of curiosity, have any of the three Secretaries who appeared before JFC on Wednesday ever actually read the state procurement manual or the corresponding state statutes and codes?