Florida audit: Big money contracts landed with politically powerful

[Kadie]

Florida audit: Big money contracts landed with politically powerful

BRENT KALLESTAD, Associated Press Writer
Wednesday, July 28, 2004

07-28) 15:52 PDT TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (AP) --

An audit shows Gov. Jeb Bush's technology office may have improperly awarded contracts to vendors who used politically connected lobbyists, but officials said Wednesday the agency has since changed the way it does business.

The audit said the technology office, created by Bush nearly six years ago, failed to provide even basic justification for many deals worth hundreds of millions of dollars.

The audit showed more than three dozen companies had some interest in doing work with the agency, but the contracts were apparently designed to give an advantage to two -- Accenture and BearingPoint -- and included clauses that gave them opportunities for price increases and renegotiations.

The audit said "the competitive process may have been circumvented" in awarding contracts to the two companies, who are responsible for state operations including the state's Web site.

Both companies have longtime Bush friends and Republican political supporters lobbying on their behalf, although those relationships were not mentioned in the audit.

more... http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/news/archive/2004/07/28/national1852EDT0750.DTL

[Beetwasher]

1. Gawsh, Really?

Whodathunk it? But it's ok, cuz they don't do it anymore! They said so, so it must be true!

[mom cat]

4. Golly gee. Should we let them off the hook or throw them to

Attorney General Eliot Spitzer. I have visions of him swooping down like Eliot Ness. :evilgrin:

[DoYouEverWonder]

2. I'd love to see an audit of the deal for that building down in Lantana

that was shut down cause of the anthrax attack.

One of Jeb's buddies bought the building (65,000 sf) and 5+ acres of land for $40,000.

You can't even buy a used outhouse w/land for $40,000 in Florida.

[AlCzervik]

3. i'd like to see Jebbie go the way of Rowland.

[Trillo]

5. Trust Us! We've Changed! Chaged Again! and again... nt

[fishnfla]

6. Cronyism in FL politics is news older than dirt

Thats how its done in Tallahassee. The 'pukes gotta lock on the districts and the state.

They did vote in beer in different size containers, now you can buy one as big as fire hydrant, so its all good!.....*urp*.....

[democrat in Tallahassee]

7. YAWN. business as usual here. wake me if something new happens

[flordehinojos]

8. Just like John Ellis Bush

Break the law until he gets caught. Then it is, "I didn't know". "It wasn't intentional". "How can you judge my heart?" "I'm sorry". "I'm not doing it any more."

I just wonder why the media doesn't take him and his big brother to task but always focuses on Clinton and the Monica Lewinsky blue dress.

There was Tom Brokaw in an interview televised on the opening night of the democratic convention taking Clinton to task for the Monica Lewinsky thing. Yet Brokaw doesn't have the cojones, as Madeline Allbright would say, to take Bush to task for his lies on the WMD thing, for his reckless policies and economic ruination of our national surplus or for having stolen our Florida votes with the help of his little brother John Ellis Bush.

:smoke:

[struggle4progress]

9. kick for shocked! shocked!

:kick: