Bourbon County commissioners are preparing to review responses to their request for proposal, or RFP, for a forensic audit of certain county employees and departments.
When pushed by Commissioner David Beerbower for updates at the July 6 meeting, Commission Chairman Sam Tran said, “we’re in the middle of budget right now,” indicating a need to focus on the budget rather than address the RFP that was slated to be published April 6.
Beerbower asked, “so we don’t have a point of contact” for receiving the proposals. Tran responded that proposals had been received.
In an effort to keep the conversation on the topic of budgeting, Tran said he is more than happy to share, "but not yet . We can bring it to the table July 20th." Beerbower had said he would miss the July 13 meeting.
Ben Hart of Baker Tilly, the firm contracted by the county, the city of Fort Scott and the Bourbon County Sheriff’s Department for budgeting assistance, said he provided a boilerplate template to the commission in March. The template was to be used by the commission to develop a finalized RFP for publication.
It appears Tran was the only one who worked on the final version, as three of the four commissioners told the Monitor in late June that they had no updates, even though the meetings authorizing the proposals occurred in March.
While the commission is under no obligation to act on the proposals, the documented timeline indicates they were due to the point of contact, Greenwood County Sheriff Heath Samuels, on May 4. The notice of intent to award is listed as May 18.
The request stems from concerns of fraud, waste and abuse within the courthouse. The RFP process was seen as a way to address a series of social media posts and public statements accusing county officials of fraud.
Tran said in the March 30 meeting, “there is a lot of fraud that happened during COVID and it’s just now coming out. So, we take it from 2021, the end of COVID, and move on from there.”
In the same meeting, it was agreed the proposals would be reviewed on “Best Value” rather than through sealed bids. The submitted responses were to go to Samuels, then to the commission, which would forward them to the selection board: Kaety Bowers and Tim Emmerson.
Bowers and Emmerson would then grade the responses by the weighted criteria spelled out in the RFP, sealing each bid before moving to the next. As of July 2, Bowers said she had not received anything.
The weighted scale for grading the responses lists cost as 20% of the score:
Tran did not respond to questions from the Monitor about whether he believes fraud, waste and abuse remain a hot-button issue in the courthouse and county government.
Asked in late June, Commissioners Mika Milburn-Kee, Gregg Motley and Beerbower all said they had received no updates, prompting Beerbower to raise the issue at the July 6 commission meeting.
Sheriff Heath Samuels of Woodson County, the designated point of contact, also did not respond to emailed questions for this story.
