Company hires Corrections official after winning multimillion-dollar contract

The Department of Corrections and the state’s purchasing agent, the Department of Administrative Services (DOAS), learned only after the contract was awarded that the company's representative had raised the possibility of a job for Adams while he was appraising BCA's offer.

Adams said in an interview that he gave little thought -- until after the contract award was announced -- to BCA's request for his resume. And Adams said he simply neglected to tell anyone about the request.

“He should have said ‘I can’t be a part of this,’” Bill Bozarth of Common Cause Georgia said of Adams' role as evaluator. Common Cause Georgia is a non-profit government watchdog group.

Still, the state Office of the Inspector General said the bidding process was not compromised and the award should stand even though state rules and the Governor's Code of Ethics were violated.

"Although BCA initiated the communication with Adams during the solicitation process, Adams should have reported the unauthorized contact ... to prevent the appearance of impropriety," the IG wrote when it closed the investigation in October.

"One could infer that by requesting his resume, BCA intended to influence Adams during the course of this solicitation process. Thus, we find the communication improper."

Adams was offered a job and he accepted it less than a month after BCA's winning bid was announced, according to records obtained by the AJC.

But Adams told the AJC  that he and BCA agreed to put the job offer "on hold" when the IG's review began on July 9.

Adams said it is unlikely he will ever work for BCA. He started another job on Dec. 1.

"I never in any way violated the spirit of the DOAS rule," Adams said.

Still, DOAS Commissioner Brad Douglas asked for the IG review when he learned of the BCA job offer in July.

“We have to be above the fray,” Douglas said.

Neither BCA chief executive officer Albert Woodard nor Danika Tynes, the company representative who recruited Adams, responded to several messages left over four days. Consequently, it is not known why BCA asked Adams for his resume at the time it did.

Adams said BCA's request for his resume did not affect his evaluations.

"The process was completely fair," Adams said. "It had no impact on my objectivity."

The IG report said Adams' scores did not suggest a bias in favor of BCA, and other evaluators said he did not try to sway their scoring. The report also quoted Adams saying that he realized in "hindsight" that he should have told Corrections and DOAS that he had been approached about a job.

"I felt the whole thing was blown out of proportion," Adams said of the investigation.

Department of Corrections commissioner Brian Owens declined to be interviewed but said in an e-mailed statement: "We as a department did not know of any relationship between Mr. Adams and BCA until after the contract was awarded. At that time, we learned from DOAS that Mr. Adams was offered a job with BCA. Upon learning that information GDC consulted with DOAS and it was decided to refer the matter to the Inspector General's Office for investigation."

As there has been a move nationwide to replace paper medical records with digital ones, the Department of Corrections began last year discussing the possibility of digitally maintaining the health information for its 53,000 inmates. Kennesaw State University also had started looking into electronically maintaining students'  medical records as a way of cutting costs and paper and making the information easier to access.

A proposal was issued as a statewide contract to also make it available to Georgia universities, state agencies and local governments.

The total cost of the contract is not yet known, DOAS' Douglas said, because the number of records is uncertain. The first year of the contract, BCA said it would charge Corrections $8.77 for each of the first 50,000 records plus other fees. The per-record price drops as the number of files increases with the additions of more agencies.

The company that finished second in the process, eClinicalWorks, submitted a bid of $3.50 for each of the first 50,000 records plus other fees.

Adams was one of five Department of Corrections employees on the evaluation team; the remaining two were from Kennesaw State.

Adams worked for Corrections 32 years. He retired from the agency on May 1, 2008, but came back three weeks later as a part-time worker over the agency's medical services.

In late October 2008, almost five months after Adams returned to DOC, the Department of Administrative Services issued a request for proposal. Companies had until Dec. 12, 2008, to submit their bids for creating and maintaining an electronic medical records system that could be expanded to other state and local agencies.

The seven-person evaluation team had its first meeting on Jan. 15, the same day Tynes asked Adams to forward his resume “when it’s an appropriate time,” according to records obtained by the Journal-Constitution.

The records suggest that Adams did not respond to that request for several months. But he did have many other e-mail exchanges with Tynes. E-mails obtained by the AJC suggest a friendly, professional friendship as Adams and Tynes discussed subjects such as the industry trends and inmate medical care.

That, however, still violated state rules and the governor's code of ethics.

For example, a DOAS employee working with the evaluators was removed from the electronic medical records project after another bidding company contacted her about an unrelated matter. That employee reported the contact right away, according to records.

No one with DOAS or Corrections knew Adams and Tynes were in touch while the review process was in progress so that is why Adams remained, according to Joseph Kim, the attorney for the Department of Administrative Services.

DOAS commissioner Douglas learned of the contact when Tynes mentioned in passing in July that Adams was coming to work with BCA later that month.

Because the contract had been awarded, discussions about removing Adams was moot, DOAS said. The only issue left was whether the bidding process was clean, so Douglas asked for an Inspector General’s review.

“Clearly that raised a red flag with us,” Douglas said in an interview with the AJC.

According to the IG report and records, the two exchanged several e-mails between January and April 30, when the state announced it intended to award BCA the contract. The decision was final on May 15.

Adams sent Tynes his resume on May 11 and asked her in the e-mail to put his information in the “right person’s hands” at BCA.

Adams needed another job since  he would have to leave DOC  on June 30 because a newGeorgia law limited how long a retired government employee could work part-time for the state.

On May 22, Adams met with the BCA executives to discuss his future with the company, according to records. And BCA wrote in a June 23 letter that Adams would join the company as a senior project manager on July 20.

According to the report, BCA executives said they would rescind Adams’ job offer if that was the only way the company could keep the contract.

Adams said the "IG's investigation showed there was no reason" to withdraw the contract.

And Douglas said the IG’s report satisfied him that “the procurement was not compromised.”