State Demands $30,000 for Public Records Tied to New RI Housing Secretary’s Consulting for RI
GoLocalProv News Team
State Demands $30,000 for Public Records Tied to New RI Housing Secretary’s Consulting for RI
Governor Dan McKee announced Goddard's appointment on November 21 — if confirmed, she will be McKee’s fourth head of housing in four years.
Undisclosed by McKee in his announcement of the appointment of Goddard but uncovered by GoLocal was she has been a paid, no-bid consultant to the Department for three years.
GET THE LATEST BREAKING NEWS HERE -- SIGN UP FOR GOLOCAL FREE DAILY EBLASTThe McKee administration did not previously disclose the consulting agreement, and the payments were made through a maze of other contractors to the agency that she is now poised to head.
GoLocal Investigation Unveils Payments to Third and Fourth Parties
In less than two and a half years, Goddard received payments for consulting work for the Department of Housing totaling $173,201.86, but the payments traveled through a series of unrelated companies.
And none of the payments were made directly to her. There is no contract between Goddard and the Department of Housing, despite the financial payouts.
GoLocal filed an Access to Public Records Act (APRA) request asking specifically for records relating to her consulting work with the state and her payments from the state.
None of the business relationships are publicly visible, and they cannot be seen through the state’s Transparency Portal, which lists payments to vendors and contractors.
Moreover, Goddard and her company were not actually hired by the Department of Housing. Instead, she contracted with an unrelated tech company from Missouri named IRG.
IRG did not have a contract with the Department of Housing either. IRG had a contract with another technology firm, Guidesoft/Knowledge Services, an Indiana-based company that does have a contract with the state of Rhode Island. The web of contracts appears to be intentionally created to circumvent the public bidding process and to mask the contract from public disclosure requirements.
In response to GoLocal’s request for public documents, the state is demanding a payment of $30,390 for the records. Of the more than 300 APRA requests GoLocal has submitted to the State of Rhode Island, this is the most expensive by a factor of ten.
According to the Department of Housing's email to GoLocal in response to the request for the public document, the agency wrote, "In accordance with R.I. Gen. Laws § 38-2-4(b), the first hour of work in response to an APRA request is free, and the Department may charge $15.00 per hour thereafter. The preliminary search identified 81,044 items that may be responsive to your request."
"The Department estimates that it will take approximately 2,026 hours (40 items per hour) to review these items for responsiveness and for exemptions under APRA. The Department has already spent over an hour on your request (first hour free). Therefore, in order to proceed with your request, the Department requests prepayment in the amount of $30,390 ($15 x 2,026 hours). Please note time will be tolled under APRA until payment is made."
It is unclear why a Massachusett-based one-person housing consultancy would be billing and subcontracting through a series of tech firms.
Controversies in New York
Prior to her consulting work for the state of Rhode Island, Goddard served as the Executive Vice President for Capital Projects at the New York City Housing Authority (NYCHA) from 2016 to 2019.
While in New York, her agency was investigated for several crises that fell under her areas of responsibility.
Tens of thousands of apartments in the NYCHA were found to have elevated levels of mold, which sparked investigations and massive lawsuits.
Under Goddard, there were major controversies relating to the condition of the housing units — specifically failed heating, which impacted hundreds of thousands of New Yorkers.
At one point in March of 2018, during Goddard's tenure, then-Governor Andrew Cuomo threatened to take over the struggling NYCHA.