RE-ENGINEERING TROUBLE
Trio tried to sell audit software back to DCF
Three data analytic workers in the state auditor’s office who helped develop software used in its audit of the Department of Children and Families later tried to sell a “re-engineered” version of the design back to DCF through a private company they created, raising questions of a potential conflict.
The revelations, detailed in documents obtained by the Herald, come weeks after Auditor Suzanne M. Bump fired three workers — one employee and two contractors — over what she called an undisclosed potential conflict of interest.
Bump’s office has refused to identify the conflict or workers involved, saying she’s asked an outside accounting firm to review their “recent” work and the State Ethics Commission to investigate. But one of the contractors, Jeff Fournier, confirmed the situation that prompted the firings, though he vehemently denied he or the other workers breached any ethical boundaries.
The situation has its roots in the audit Bump released last month, which criticized DCF’s handling of sexual assault cases and claimed
— PAM WILMOT Common Cause executive director
it failed to track 260 cases of children being injured in its care over a two-year span. It prompted a fierce response from Gov. Charlie Baker, who blasted parts of it as “irresponsible” and untrue.
Fournier, one of the contractors, emailed DCF’s chief of staff, Ryan FitzGerald, on Dec. 13 — about a week after the audit was released — pitching the work of Riscovery Inc., a risk analytics firm he created with Brian Scheetz, Bump’s assistant director of data analytics, and Sanjay Shah, another DCF contractor, in 2014.
Fournier wrote that Shah and Scheetz were “instrumental” in creating the office’s software and database designs, which he’s helped manage as part of a sixyear technology project. It’s these “tools,” he said, that DCF used to identify children at risk in its audit of DCF.
“Knowing that the DCF Audit was coming to an end and recognizing that there is no market solution currently available, the three of us teamed to re-engineer the underlying architecture, database design, and the software solution to be more DCF focused,” Fournier wrote in an email, which the Herald obtained through a public records request. “It is in no way a finished product from a DCF perspective, we don’t know your specific requirements, but it is a solution that can be of almost immediate help in the identification of children at risk and affording DCF a more pro-active approach to risk mitigation.
“We would like to talk with and show the DCF leadership team what we have done, and what can be done in this space to offer a realistic, affordable, timely solution to this emerging and urgent need,” he said.
Andrea Grossman, a DCF spokeswoman, said Friday that the pitch was unsolicited and that FitzGerald didn’t respond.
Marylou Sudders, Baker’s health and human services secretary, confronted Bump about the email at a Dec. 20 meeting, Fournier said. A Sudders spokeswoman confirmed the secretary “raised the matter as either a potential or real conflict in that meeting.”
“It’s a pretty clear conflict on a number of legal bases,” said Pam Wilmot, executive director of Common Cause Massachusetts, a government watchdog group. “One is, you’re not allowed to essentially ever take private information that you obtained through your job through a particular matter, which would be developing software, and then turn around and sell it.
“It sounds like there were some serious problems there,” Wilmot said, “and the auditor made the right call.”
Alicia Curran, a Bump spokeswoman, refused to discuss the three workers, calling it a personnel matter and referring back to Bump’s initial Jan. 5 statement on the firings.
State payroll records show Scheetz is no longer with the office, and took a $7,100 buyout earlier this month.
“Whether this is a conflict of interest is a decision for the State Ethics Commission,” Curran said, adding: “There is the potential for a violation of the state ethics law when a state employee has a second job that may be in conflict with his or her state job.”
In a lengthy statement to the Herald issued on behalf of the company the three men founded, Fournier said neither he nor Shah worked directly on the DCF audit — though he acknowledged that Scheetz was an “active participant” — and said he made the pitch in part because his contract with the auditor’s office was ending this month. He said Scheetz had been prepared to resign his position if “any interest (from DCF) had materialized.”
Fournier confirmed that Bump tapped an accounting firm to do a review in light of the email and “as part of the process, let go of her employee and contractors that were her strongest assets.”
“We are confident that the external firm will confirm the results of the audit,” Fournier said. “At no time did we intend or did we violate the State Ethics law and have been completely and consistently transparent in our approach ... The (investigation) is completely without merit and has severely, if not permanently, damaged our ability to conduct business in Massachusetts.”
‘It’s a pretty clear conflict on a number of legal bases.’