April 13, 2003

The Sundquist Legacy

The FBI is investigating for possible criminal wrongdoing yet another lucrative state contract awarded during the Sundquist administration to a company that hired a key Sundquist political ally and wound up getting millions of taxpayer dollars. Reports The Tennessean:

Robert Wendell Moore, former chief of staff, campaign manager and a business partner to Gov. Don Sundquist, was working last year as a lobbyist for a computer consulting company under contract with the state when the administration decided to scale back a plan to put scores of computer consultants on the state payroll. Neither Sundquist nor Moore could be reached for comment.

Putting the consultants, some charging $100 an hour, on the state payroll would have resulted in a loss of millions of dollars to the six computer companies under contract with the state to do the consulting work. The contracts, first awarded in 1997, totaled about $30 million annually.

Questions about the computer consulting contracts arose in a report issued by the state comptroller this week. According to the report, a plan to convert contracted workers to state employees was abruptly changed last fall. It also found overbillings by two computer consultants who worked for a company under contract with the state.

The comptroller's report estimates moving more than 100 computer consultants working under contract onto the state's payroll could save taxpayers $4 million to $5 million annually. But the plan was later "dramatically scaled back,
says The Tennessean.

Former Finance Commissioner Warren Neel told The Tennessean one reason the cost-saving transition was delayed was because Sundquist was concerned about financially damaging the consulting companies. In other words, a company that employed a Sundquist crony in an important position was protected by the governor.

That company, Memphis-based SCB Computer Technology, was paid some $62.4 million under the contract between March 1998 and December 2002. The contract is just the latest in a series of state contracts awarded during the Sundquist years - in which companies with key executives who are allies of the Sundquist administration landed lucrative business deals - are being probed for possible criminal wronging.

Sundquist allies continue to pooh-pooh the whole thing, but the steady drip-drip-drip of contract scandal stories is looking more and more like a real flood. Biggest beneficiary: new Gov. Phil Bredesen, who campaigned on a theme of managerial competence. Biggest loser: The Sundquist legacy, which was already one of limited accomplishment and massive political and fiscal failure.