Other notable procurement failures predated Jackson and Ricketts. They include the state’s 2007 contract to develop a major Medicaid claims processing and information system and a 2014 contract for a new Medicaid eligibility and enrollment system.
In the first case, state officials signed a $45 million contract with FourThought Group, based in Arizona. HHS officials terminated the contract in July 2009, after only 15 months, saying the company “did not have the capacity to deliver the system they proposed.”
Kerry Winterer, the former CEO of HHS, told the investigative committee that the company “had never implemented such a contract and that many of their representations as to having products available to apply to the project were simply not true. The company appeared to be poorly capitalized and understaffed.”
By then, the state had paid FourThought more than $6.8 million in state and federal money. Later in 2009, the state reached a settlement to pay another $4.75 million.
In the second case, state officials signed an $80 million contract with Wipro, based in India. Four years later, HHS officials ordered a review of the project after Wipro requested a fifth amendment to its contract, which the state said would have delayed completion of the project by two years and added $28 million to the project total.
