The black eyes keep coming for the Kansas City, Kansas, Board of Public Utilities. Yesterday, a legislative audit was released showing that the utility company failed to seek competitive bids for 21 of 25 contracts valued at more than $50,000.
I'd heard for a couple of years that the BPU wasn't bidding contracts. Finally, a legislative audit report from Tom Wiss and a special master's report proved it. The reports were commissioned after the indictments of the BPU's Chief Administrative Officer Marc Conklin and long-time attorney Rod Turner. Wyandotte County prosecutors allege that Turner knowingly submitted
phony bills, which Conklin approved. They say Conklin knew the bills were fake.
Even though the reports were commissioned because of the indictments, the
reports don't examine the culture that caused the alleged thefts.
So what did Wiss find? A whole lot.
No contracts for legal services exist. No contract existed for a
surveying company paid $151,000 for a nine-month job that was never reviewed.
No contract exists for a roofing contractor hired for a $268,000 job.
Wiss and special master George Turner's 19 recommendations included
having
the BPU aggressively rebid all contracts, advertise professional
service contracts, keep the BPU's Ethics Commission running and closely
monitor procurement card usage. Both stressed that the utility is already making changes.
After the meeting, Wiss and George Turner deflected questions about the environment allowed under Conklin and Rod Turner (the two Turners are not related).
"I have no idea," Wiss said when asked whether the BPU's environment was conducive to theft.
"No comment to the lawsuit," George Turner said.
Wiss added that he didn't look at any documents related to Conklin or Rod Turner.
"We didn't look to the environment as to how they got to where they
were," Wiss said. "We were looking to what the status of what they
were at the time of our audit."
I thought that was the purpose of the audit -- to identify how the
alleged thefts occurred and to change the BPU's policies to prevent
that from happening.
I asked Wiss if he outlined in his report which contracts weren't bid on.
"No. The contract names are not in the report itself," Wiss said. "They are in our working papers."
Is there a way to get those names? I asked.
"Through open records requests those records are available," Wiss said.
The Unified Government and the BPU talk about transparency, so why not release them now? They're going to come out sooner or later. Why drag it out?
Mayor Joe Reardon said he wants time to study the report.
"However, it appears to me that the Unified Government will be in
the position, based on the reports presented, to scrutinize the BPU
business practices and policies based on the facts and not anecdotal
stories," Reardon said in a prepared statement. "I expect the BPU Board will begin immediately to implement the recommendations."
Reardon told the BPU to present a "responsive report" to the UG Board on March 5.
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The BPU Board needs to go. Vote them all out. They sat around and did nothing while we were getting ripped off.
THERE IS A VERY PERSISTENT AND CREDIBLE RUMOR THAT STEVE REHM(BPU CANDIDATE ,FORMER EMPLOYEE) HAS ONE OF THOSE NO BID CONTRACTS.HOPEFULLY SOMEONE IN THE'INVESTIGATIVE" MEDIA WILL FOLOW UP ON THAT.
Most of us expected a coverup.Agree with Amazed,the "media"should be demanding that the list be released immediately and that the DA should be checking campaign donor lists with unbid contracts.Not only are Board members complicit in this but also BPU employees.The KBI should re open their investigation since the DA has given up.
More excellent reporting by Justin Kendall.Is there any chance the DA will now pursue criminal charges against the general manager and the elected board?There can be no doubt now that criminal theft has occurred.
How long before those names are published?Is the mayors cousin,Scott Cahill,one of those?All candidates running for the BPU board should demand that those contracts be immediately released and the DA should insure they be published.Since taxpayer dollars payed for the audit why do reporters have to request them under FOI?
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