Top Lawyer at State Health Agency Resigns Over Contract
Jack Stick, the top lawyer for the Texas Health and Human Services Commission, is resigning his post amid a crumbling state contract with data warehouse 21CT.
The commission’s Office of Inspector General, or OIG, has been under scrutiny for the way it decided to award a highly sought-after contract to the company to store and sort the sprawling health agency’s data into searchable, cataloged material. The state tentatively awarded the contract to 21CT outside the formal bidding process, Janek has said. The contract, originally set at $20 million, is about to expire, and the OIG had proposed a $90 million, three-year extension.
"Contractors have raised issues about the procurement for this project,” Kyle Janek, the agency's executive commissioner, said in a statement Friday. “I've looked into those concerns, and I'm not comfortable with the process used so I've withdrawn the request for state approval to extend the project and notified the OIG.”
As the agency considered which company to hire, Stick, who had worked with 21CT before, suggested there might be overlap in the new data project and services the company provided, Janek has said. In September, Janek, Stick’s boss and a Gov. Rick Perry appointee, defended Stick’s work ethic and professionalism.
Read more: http://www.texastribune.org/2014/12/12/top-lawyer-state-health-agency-resigns-over-contra/