A legislative panel has signed off on the state Department of Human Services' decision to use a different private contractor to run the lockup that holds the state's most serious juvenile offenders.
The Legislative Council's Review Subcommittee on Thursday completed its review of the proposed three-year contract with Minden, Nev.-based Rite of Passage Inc. for $34.1 million. The contract will begin Aug. 1.
The contract is for the operation and management of the Arkansas Juvenile Assessment and Treatment Center near Alexander, which provides residential services to medium and serious juvenile offenders committed to the department's Youth Services Division.
Rite of Passage runs 30 similar facilities in 14 states.
The department decided to hire Rite of Passage instead of retaining the center's current contractor, Florida-based G4S, even though Rite of Passage submitted a higher-priced proposal.
That initial proposal would have cost the state $12.07 million a year over three years, or $36.2 million for the life of the contract, while G4S submitted a proposal that would cost $11.24 million a year over three years -- or $33.7 million, according to state records and officials.
"Subsequently to soliciting proposals, the state then entered into negotiations with [the] winning vendor, Rite of Passage Inc.," state Department of Finance and Administration spokesman Jake Bleed said Friday.
The $34.1 million price of the three-year contract with Rite of Passage "was agreed upon after negotiations with the state," he said. "The difference in prices reflects the result of negotiations with the vendor. These negotiations were able to substantially reduce the anticipated price of the contract."
G4S has operated the center since 2007 at an annual cost of about $10 million. The company has been entangled in the lockup's problems, but it also has been credited for overseeing improvements that helped free the facility from federal court supervision in 2012. The Youth Services Division, which oversees the facility, has had 11 directors in the past two decades.
During Thursday's meeting of the Review Subcommittee, state Sen. Joyce Elliott, D-Little Rock, questioned why the state Department of Human Services wants to contract with Rite of Passage instead of G4S, when Rite of Passage submitted a higher-priced proposal.
Misty Bowen-Eubanks, the department's chief procurement officer, said the department didn't solely evaluate the proposals based on price.
"We actually score quality first, or the technical piece first, without ever knowing what is the price component," she said.
The evaluation team's "consensus scores" go back to the state Office of State Procurement, and "there is a calculation that takes into account the technical score, along with the pricing score, so it is possible that you can be the lowest-price bidder and still not be the successful or selected awardee," Bowen-Eubanks said.
Rite of Passage's technical score "was much stronger than the lowest-priced bidder," she said.
Marq Golden, assistant director of residential operations at the Youth Services Division, said Rite of Passage's proposal scored "much stronger" in terms of treatment services and an educational component than G4S's proposal.
Elliott, a retired teacher, said she preferred "to have some comparison to help me feel better that this is a much better deal for the students, after we have [made] so much progress."
In response, S. James Broman, chief executive officer for Rite of Passage, said the company "has been able to attract some outside special education resources from our other programs.
"We are bringing in two highly qualified [special education] staff," he said. "We have a lot of experience from our other programs, where we have 100 percent compliance on our state outcomes.
"We'll probably going to end up with at least three [special education] coordinators, and we hope to make sure that we differentiate between educational abilities as well as providing services to all different children out there since there are boys, girls, young and old," Broman said.
"We are going to continue with the college program. We are going to continue with the things that have been going well out there. But we are going to work on getting higher scores, getting better outcomes in vocation as well as educational outcomes," he said.
Elliott said Rite of Passage had a stellar program in Maryland, but she questioned whether the contractor has resolved its issues in Nevada.
Last year, a riot broke out at a Rite of Passage facility in Nevada. The riot caused a fire during which 10 youths escaped.
Broman said the Nevada program has operated for 35 years and "we have served over 30,000 kids," arguing that it's a highly regarded program.
The Nevada program has made some changes, he said.
"In the 35-year history, it was our one isolated incident that we had in that program," Broman said.
"Since that time, we've worked on a lot of different things in terms of de-escalation. We have worked on adding different elements to our programs. But in this field with these facilities, from time to time you have incidents. From our perspective, it's how we deal with those incidents. It's very important to be transparent. It's very important to learn. It's very important to move forward, and that's what we have done. That is a nationally recognized girls program today," he said.
Metro on 07/16/2016