Press release from Wayne Dolcefino about another lawsuit against the Sylvester Turner administration.
For immediate release
March 20, 2019MAYOR TURNER ACCUSED OF ANOTHER RIGGED CITY CONTRACT
Forty- four thousand City of Houston employees and their families have health insurance, and it costs Houston taxpayers a fortune to provide it. In 2019, the budget for health benefits is $435 million.
That’s huge money.
Tomorrow, a Houston taxpayer named Darryl Chapman will ask a judge to stop the new contract with Cigna, calling it an illegal procurement, rigged from the start to make sure they won. The court hearing is scheduled for 1:00 pm in Judge Steven Kirkland’s court.
One of the allegations is that Cigna was given information about medical claims that another company United Healthcare wasn’t given.
But why would city hall ever play favorites? Isn’t it supposed to be what’s in the best interest of taxpayers and of city employees and their families?
It’s hard not to notice that the Mayor’s close friend Cindy Clifford was in the room during the vote. Clifford was the head of Mayor Turner’s Inaugural Committee. She’s been on the winning side of a curious number of big city contracts since then.
City records show she’s the lobbyist for Cigna. The Mayor pushed through the Cigna deal today, even after learning the legal action had been filed.
“I think everyone will agree, anyone can file a lawsuit,” said Turner during a meeting of Houston City Council. “Until a temporary restraining order is put in place and the requisite bond filed, there is nothing that precludes this body or anybody from proceeding.”
Of course, that could also mean Houston taxpayers will likely pick up another legal tab down the road to clean up the Mayor’s latest smelly business deal.
There’s a growing pattern of complaints that this Mayor is picking winners and losers, long before we are supposed to pick them in lucrative city contracts.
We’ve been raising a stink about Clifford for months, since she constantly claims in sworn lobbying reports that she hasn’t spent a penny on Mayor Turner or his family, despite photos on Facebook and Instagram that prove otherwise.
Houston City Attorney Ron Lewis has ignored our complaints. So has District Attorney Kim Ogg.
Makes you wonder who else is getting a piece of this huge financial pie?
Somebody called in last Friday afternoon on The Three Amigos and said Turner had authorized $400 million in contracts over the last year without bidding by keeping every deal just below the $50k level that requires competitive bidding. Have you heard of this?
Yes. Both Tony Buzbee and Bill King have weighed in on this. Here is Bill’s thoughts: http://www.billkingblog.com/city-of-houston-finances/turner-spent-400-million-without-city-council-approval-and-look-for-your-water-rates-to-go-up-even-more/
Just as an observation, $400,000,000 in $50,000 increments means that there were at least 8,000 contracts issued in the last year. That’s 32 contracts every working day, or a new contract every 15 minutes. It that’s true then the City of Houston has problems that we haven’t even begun to discuss. . .
Fox news reported the contracts as being very small on average:
“By law, if a contract is under $50 thousand, the mayor’s departments don’t need to put it up for a vote, and it’s been this way for years. But, it was almost $400 million in the last fiscal year.
Council member David Martin says if the council voted on everything, it would get nothing done. Here’s his analysis.
Last year there were 149,000 such contracts.
The average contract was for $2,700. 92% of contracts are under $10,000. The mayor’s office declined to comment, but this is an election year, so his challengers are.”
When contacted for a followup, CM Martin made it clear that most of the smaller contracts had already been approved as part of larger contracts, the process is designed that way so they can get stuff done. Past administrations did the same thing and if Bill King is claiming he will personally supervise every single contract regardless of size, he’s never going to leave his office.
http://www.fox26houston.com/news/city-spending-questioned-amid-concerns-over-prob-b-funding
149,000 contracts a year is more than one per minute every single working day. Who IS supervising this stuff? And, if even 8% of the contracts are for more than $10K that’s still 11,000 contracts. Please note that there is a distinct difference (or there should be) between a contract.and a P.O.