Lawmakers Question Millions Spent In DHS Contracts

KATV’s Marine Glisovic reports:

$4.8 million of our tax dollars has been wasted by the Department of Human Services with no product to show for it.

Following an audit in December and recently with several lawmakers inquiring about the money spent, DHS officials said they’re trying to figure out who signed off on this contract to develop software.

Someone in a leadership role who worked in the DHS Division of Aging and Adult Services is who is responsible for signing off on the multi-million dollar project with the company C-H Mack, that’s according to this division’s director who has only held this position for the past 12 weeks.

Following requests made by Channel 7 to the DHS, it is still unclear who signed off on a $4.8 million contract between DHS and the company C-H Mack to create software that would help the division of aging and adult services assess levels of care and needs.

“When the product was delivered, there were issues with its functionality and the ability to deliver the outcome for which it was procured,” said DHS Division of Aging and Adult Services Director Craig Cloud.

From 2011 to 2014, C-H Mack failed to deliver the product costing Arkansans millions. Then in 2014, DHS terminated that contract, still with no software, but jumped into another contract.

This time worth $16.1 million for the next five years with CoCentrix, the person to sign off was Tim Lampe, DHS’ Director of Quality Assurance.

On Monday, lawmakers met and discussed the issues involving wasted money, but many questions are still left unanswered.

“We’re just systemically taking a layer off at a time until we get down to who it was who authorized this in the first place and why it was that $4.7 million was spent with nothing to show for it,” said Representative Kim Hammer, (R-28).

“Now that we’re a little over 9.3 million dollars into a 5-year contract and we’ve already spent that much money in the first year, you know how are we going to finish out…are we going to have another disaster toward the end,” added Rep. Hammer.

Director Cloud tells Channel 7 someone in leadership signed off on the C-H Mack contract and currently those roles include a director and three assistant directors. Only one those assistant directors worked during the period of the C-H Mack contract according to DHS Spokeswoman Amy Webb.

Rep. Hammer said they’re currently working to meet on this issue during the special legislative session and hope to get a meeting set for next Tuesday.

To read more of the contracts and agreements, go to this link.