In a shocking announcement earlier this week, the Agency for Health Care Administration (AHCA) announced its intentions to award a contract to Deloitte Consulting, LLC for Enterprise Data Warehouse services pertaining to Florida’s Medicaid program.
Deloitte is the same corporation that created the abysmal CONNECT computer system that processes the state’s Reemployment Assistance (RA) benefits. Over the last five months, millions of out-of-work Floridians have struggled mightily to access the benefits they are owed as the COVID-19 pandemic forced the shutdown of businesses and record high unemployment throughout Florida.
Senator Berman stated, “Given this track record, it is shocking that the same company was even allowed to be part of the bid process. The fact that it was the winner of the bid is even more unimaginable. The State should not be rewarding a company whose data system has caused so much pain and grief to Floridians. Since March, over three million Floridians have filed claims for unemployment and the vast majority will tell you the experience was difficult, confusing and illogical.”
In its initial contract for CONNECT, Deloitte’s payment of $40 million ended up soaring to a figure of over $77 million by the time it was completed. Since then, the state has had to dump another $100 million in attempts to patch the failing website. The state of Florida has had issues with Deloitte in the past, and filed suit against the company in 2010 for issues stemming from its auditing of insurance companies that shut down following a flurry of hurricanes.
“The continued fleecing of Floridians for the benefit of Deloitte, one of the largest accounting firms in the world, is the epitome of governmental inefficiency. It is unfathomable that this could happen given Deloitte’s history with our state, particularly the atrocious CONNECT system,” said Senator Cruz. “Ultimately, the state of Florida should not even consider paying Deloitte one more red cent until every Floridian has received the outstanding unemployment benefits they are owed.”
Both Senator Cruz and Senator Berman request that the bid process be frozen so that it can be determined if the state utilized the catastrophic unemployment system in the bid scoring that culminated in the award to Deloitte.
