A special county legislative committee has found no evidence of fraud or corruption in a contract between the Orange County government and information technology vendor StarCIO, according to the committee’s final report.
“Our first finding is, the StarCIO contract was not properly procured,” special committee chairman and county legislator Kevin Hines said during his presentation of the report at the rules committee meeting on Feb. 21.
But that was a mistake rather than a corrupt act, he said, adding that the county had been working diligently to perfect its procurement policy and process due to the special committee’s work.
The county’s investigation stemmed from allegations by state Sen. James Skoufis and several county legislators in October that the $800,000-plus StarCIO contract was a corrupt scheme to benefit a county official’s relative who was mired in financial hardships.
StarCIO’s owner, Issac Sacolick, is the brother-in-law of Langdon Chapman, the county’s human resources commissioner.
Although Mr. Chapman recommended Mr. Sacolick to the county procurement department, he explicitly said that he would stay out of the decision-making process, according to Mr. Chapman’s testimony to the special committee, as well as text message evidence collected by legislators.
The special legislative committee did not interview Mr. Sacolick.
A claim that Mr. Sacolick’s primary residence was under foreclosure, and that this was likely a driver of the contract, was characterized by Mr. Hines as an outrageously false narrative based on a misunderstood legal notice.
“Someone with an eighth-grade education could read that document. It said in plain English that this mortgage is paid in full,” he said. “People should do their due diligence before making wild accusations.”
The special committee did find, however, that the contract was improperly procured. Although the county solicited three quotes before choosing StarCIO, one quote was secured passively from a government contract database without any communications with the vendor. In contrast, the county gave Mr. Sacolick a detailed work statement to use in coming up with his quote. StarCIO was also the only vendor furnished with confidential county information.
When asked during an interview with the committee about why StarCIO was given privileged information, county director of operations Alicia D’Amico provided no response.
Mr. Hines said that going forward, the country’s procurement process must be fine-tuned, given the ambiguity in this case as to who acted as the chief negotiator for the StarCIO contract.
The investigation also found room for improvement in the contract-administration process, considering the fact that the county began making payments beyond the initial contracted amount to StarCIO before a formal renewal was done.
There should be better-organized recordkeeping in the procurement department as well, given the amount of time it takes the staff to produce requested documents, according to Mr. Hines.
“The committee acknowledges that a tremendous amount of good has come out of this review,” he said, noting the county’s ongoing actions to improve its policy, execution, and documentation.
Given that a current “failed” contractor—with whom the county has spent millions of dollars over several years—was what prompted the county to seek a new IT contractor, the special committee has requested that related contracts from the county be sent to the state comptroller’s office.
Committee members also recommended an audit of all county contracts, to the extent possible, in order to more fully evaluate the county’s procurement activities.
The rules committee voted unanimously to accept the final report on Feb. 21.
County legislature chairwoman Katherine Bonelli, who assembled the bipartisan special committee, commended the members and her legislative counsel for their hard work.
“It is a lot of reading and a lot of time behind the scenes,” she said at the meeting. “And I applaud [the executive branch’s] efforts to move forward with corrective actions.”
Mr. Skoufis referred the StarCIO case to the state attorney general’s office and the FBI in October. The latter has requested related documents from the county.
In a statement to The Epoch Times through his attorney, Mr. Sacolick said he had referred what he saw as “tortious conduct” by Mr. Skoufis to the state Senate for further review.
