The State Auditor’s Office has released a report which summarizes the State Auditor’s Office’s investigation of the Health and Human Services Commission’s and its Office of Inspector General’s (OIG) procurement of fraud detection services from 21CT, Inc. as of March 20, 2015. The State Auditor’s Office will be continuing its investigation.
The view the report in its entirety, use this link: http://www.sao.state.tx.us/reports/main/15-031.pdf
The report lists the following recommendations the Legislature should consider to address issues at the Commission and the OIG:
- Requiring the Commission’s executive commissioner to formally approve in writing the payment of all invoices that exceed $1 million.
- Requiring the Commission’s deputy executive commissioner for procurement to formally certify that all payments associated with Commission and OIG procurements comply with all state requirements and Commission policies and procedures.
- Requiring the Commission to procure goods and services through a competitive bidding process, rather than a process based on vendors’ proofs of concept.
- Requiring the Commission to establish and enforce proper segregation of duties for all aspects (planning, procurement, contract/agreement formation, and oversight) of its procurement and contracting.
The report lists the following recommendations the Legislature should consider to strengthen the Cooperative Contracts program:
- Establishing a limit for the dollar amount of purchases that state entities can make through Cooperative Contracts program contracts for commodities.
- Requiring state entities to obtain three bids for purchases they make through the Cooperative Contracts program.
- Requiring state entities to submit a final scope of work to the Department of Information Resources prior to initiating a purchase order for a purchase through the Cooperative Contracts program.
- Requiring state entities to send all purchase orders for purchases they make through the Cooperative Contracts program to the Department of Information Resources.
- Requiring the Department of Information Resources to review the purchase orders it receives from state entities to ensure that they are purchasing only goods and services that are authorized under vendors’ cooperative contracts with the Department of Information Resources.
- Requiring state entities to report the amount of payments they make to vendors through the Cooperative Contracts program, and requiring the Department of Information Resources to publish on its Web site how much each state entity has paid each vendor through each type of cooperative contract.
- Removing the Commission’s executive commissioner as an ex officio member of the Department of Information Resources’ governing board.
- Prohibiting or restricting state entities from purchasing services through Department of Information Resources cooperative contracts for commodities.
