NEW: Rep. Baldelli Hunt Wants Investiation into Repeal of Budget Amendment
Wednesday, January 11, 2012
Rep. Lisa Baldelli Hunt is requesting an investigation into what she believes was misinformation given to the General Assembly at the end of the 2011 legislative session that led to a repeal of a budget amendment she sponsored concerning a state advertising contract.
As a result of a conversation she had with the U.S. Attorney’s Office last week, Representative Baldelli Hunt is requesting that the FBI investigate the awarding of all the media, advertising and public relations contracts awarded by state and quasi-public agencies.
The contract for a Master Price Agreement (MPA) for media buying services was the subject of controversy last June, when the General Assembly approved, and days later repealed, a budget amendment proposed by Representative Baldelli Hunt to extend the contract to include quasi-public agencies. The MPA is a state contract that allows an advertising firm to handle most state agencies’ advertising purchases, with the object of attaining savings through bulk buying.
GET THE LATEST BREAKING NEWS HERE -- SIGN UP FOR GOLOCAL FREE DAILY EBLASTAfter lobbying from a competitor of the company that previously held the MPA, the General Assembly repealed the amendment, known as Article 27. Subsequently, the request for proposals for a new MPA was issued, and the new contract – which was awarded to the company that lobbied against Article 27 – appears to have much less stringent requirements for guaranteed savings for the state than the previous one. It also does not require all state agencies to actually use the MPA, meaning state agencies could contract for advertising on their own and the state would lose the advantage of bulk purchasing.
“The Master Price Agreement is a useful tool if it means the state gets a significant discount by buying our advertising in bulk. That’s why I wanted to expand the contract to include all the quasi-public agencies, not just the state agencies. But if you get rid of the guaranteed savings, that’s just a sweetheart deal for one advertising firm. There’s no benefit to handing a huge contract to one company unless we are positive the taxpayers will save a significant amount of money,” said Representative Baldelli Hunt (D-Dist. 49, Woonsocket). “For the contract to be made less stringent and then awarded to the very company that worked to influence its scope to its own benefit before the agreement went out to bid seems extremely suspicious.”
Representative Baldelli Hunt said when the request for proposals for the new MPA was issued, she called the Department of Administration to request the savings requirements be made stricter, but her request was ignored.
“There are just a lot of questions here, and I want answers. It just doesn’t seem right that the new contract would be so much less strict and would then go to the very company that lobbied against making that agreement a better cost-saver for the state,” she said. “There needs to be some accountability if my colleagues were given misinformation by a private entity that stood to benefit if they would repeal a part of the budget that was included to save the state money.”
