Lawmakers OK hiring ‘Fairness officer’ for DHS

The state Department of Human Services received approval from lawmakers on Friday to hire a “fairness officer” in order to improve its contracting process.

Keesa Smith, the department’s deputy director, told the Arkansas Legislative Council that the position was the brainchild of Director Cindy Gillespie and would be housed with the department’s legal team instead of in the procurement office.

“There’s been a number of news articles written about ongoing procurements that we have and there’s a question about how those procurements are evaluated and how they’re handled,” Smith said. “This is one step taken to try to clean up this process.”

Two nonprofit organizations running seven Arkansas juvenile treatment and detention centers have said state officials failed to document why a for-profit, out-of-state company should replace them, even though the new company’s bid was more expensive.

Department spokesman Amy Webb had said no documentation existed that would explain how bidding vendors scored in specific categories, but later the department found the requested score sheets, provided them to media outlets and offered to re-evaluate the bids.

The department is waiting on a response from its Office of State Procurement.

Chief Procurement Officer Misty Eubanks told lawmakers that the new position would be focused on “helping with evaluation teams to ensure that conversations inside evaluations around bids are fair and equitable” and helping with “documentation and things of that nature to ensure that our packets regarding bid solicitations are open and transparent.”

The new hire will be paid about $45,000 a year, she said. The person will need to have a law degree.

Rep. Kim Hammer, R-Benton, praised the hire as an idea borrowed from the world of private enterprise.

Other lawmakers questioned the hire, saying state government is supposed to be working under a hiring freeze.

Eubanks noted that more states, including California, are hiring fairness officers, especially for high-profile contracts, and it’s a standard practice in some other countries, such as Canada, Great Britain and Australia.

The position was approved in a voice vote with little dissent after lawmakers suspended a rule that mandated the approval had to go through the Arkansas Legislative Council’s personnel subcommittee.