The Administrative and Residual Employees Union AFT Local 4200 (A&R) is claiming the Connecticut Department of Emergency Services and Public Protection (DESPP) improperly entered into a contract with a private company to perform audit services already being handled by current employees, according to documents received through a Freedom of Information Request.
According to a complaint and petition submitted to the Connecticut State Contracting Standards Board (SCSB), letters and emails, DESPP entered into a one-year nearly $100,000 contract with Peak Performance and Diverse Computing Inc., a law enforcement software company, to conduct agency audits for the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s Criminal Justice Information System (CJIS). The complaint alleges that this was done without the proper bids or cost-benefit analysis and that the outside vendor is being used to displace current employees.
“A&R has concerns that the contract being sought by DESPP is not intended to fill an existing gap in services but instead is to replace services performed by current staff,” wrote John DiSette, president of A&R, in an October 2023 letter to the SCSB. “A&R is extending the voice of the DESPP staff who are already performing the targeted duties and have raised concerns that the contract is unnecessary. Additionally, staff have reported that the contract sets an output performance goal that is actually less than the results achieved by current staff.”
According to the contract between DESPP and Diverse Computing, “The proposed project is structured to assist the CT DESPP staff with issuing and reviewing the remaining audits in their current CJIS audit cycle ending in August 2024 (up to 1250 agencies and over 15,000 back audits) and to assist with the preparation prior to the CT DESPP FBI audit.”
According to an August email from Yvonne Wright-Golia of the DESPP’s COLLECT Unit regarding the contract, “We need signatures as soon as possible as this is urgent due to FBI sanctions.”
“These sanctions will directly impact future funding accessibility and access to FBI CJIS Systems for the State of Connecticut,” Wright-Golia wrote.
According to the initial complaint submitted in September to the SCSB by Versie L. Jones, a law enforcement systems analyst (LESA) for DESPP’s COLLECT Unit, the current software being used by the department and the six LESA currently working could complete the process much more quickly for no additional expense.
“The contractor is required to complete 154 audits every 30 days. This makes no sense because that would require one auditor to perform 26 audits in 30 days,” Jones wrote in an emailed complaint to the SCSB. “An auditor could complete 156 audits using the vendor software at no additional cost to the state in 1 week.”
Prior to his resignation, DESPP Commissioner James Rovella initially responded that the Department considered this a labor matter because Jones had requested a grievance be filed by A&R, according to the documents received by Inside Investigator.
A follow-up letter dated December 8 from DESPP Chief Fiscal Officer Aimee Plourde to the SCSB just before the board’s meeting states that there is no privatization of state services, stating the contract is meant to assist current staff with completing the remaining audits more efficiently and training new staff with the vendor software. As such, Plourde argues that DESPP is not subject to privatization statutes or cost-benefit analysis requirements.
However, DESPP did admit in their letter to “inadvertently” missing “critical steps in the procurement process,” namely, competitive bidding for the contract. DESPP indicated they will be hiring a procurement officer in January of 2024, publish guidance for DESPP employees regarding contract procurement and collaborate with the SCSB for training on “rules and best practices.”
During a December 8 meeting of the SCSB, members including Sal Luciano and Robert Rinker said the letter amounted to DESPP saying the department was not subject to the SCSB’s jurisdiction on this issue. Luciano questioned why the SCSB’s privatization sub-committee canceled its December meeting when the matter had been brought to the board in August.
“This has been lingering for several months now,” said SCSB member Lauren Gauthier “It needs resolution and as [Rinker] pointed out there’s at least four, five different points to address, there’s other litigation that may be pending because of it or determining on it. I don’t understand why we have not scheduled a meeting to address what we already knew, but now we have this.”
SCSB Chairman Michael Walsh said he agrees the matter should be handled by the privatization sub-committee and then be brought to the full board.
A&R President DiSette spoke at the meeting saying the work conducted by LESAs, gathering and auditing law enforcement information, is a government function that has traditionally been done by state employees.
“I just don’t see the public policy reason for this when you have staff members… to do this job,” DiSette said. “The expectations in the contract, the output numbers, are far less than the current employees perform, so I’m looking for the public policy reason for this contract. It absolutely boggles my mind the response you got from the agency.”
The initial complainant, Versie Jones, also spoke at the meeting, saying that she was present in meetings when it was said DESPP is contracting out the audits, audits which she has done for over ten years, and doesn’t believe the letter sent by DESPP is truthful and accurate.
“Things are supposed to be open and transparent,” Jones said. “To have a contractor come in to have to do even less work and even less training than the FBI requires of us as auditors is just almost a slap in the face.”
In a December 18 response letter to DESPP’s position, DiSette noted the Statement of Work section of the contract does not list training, contrary to DESPP’s statement, that the work outlined in the contract is already performed by current state employees, and that the vendor is based in Florida and will conduct the work remotely from there.
“This ‘Statement of Work’ directly indicates that Diverse Computing will not take a training role to optimize skills and proficiency but will actively perform the role that is currently conducted by DESPP staff,” DiSette wrote. “Therefore A&R objects to this contract and requests that the SCSB review this contract and act according to their best judgement and in accordance with the laws and regulations governing your authority.”
According to the Statement of Work in Diverse Computing’s contract, Diverse Computing will develop an “expedited and abbreviated audit program to ensure all agencies are audited prior to the CT DESPP FBI Audit.”
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