By Dan Christensen, BrowardBulldog.org
Bob Butterworth
Ex-Department of Children and Families Secretary Bob Butterworth lobbied heavily this year to convince his former agency to award his nonprofit company – and its for profit partner – a $44 million-a-year state management contract.
Butterworth, however, is not registered in Tallahassee to lobby state officials.
The Broward Behavioral Health Coalition, Butterworth’s group, won the competition in March to become Broward’s new “managing entity for substance abuse and mental health services.”
Today, after months of delay caused by an unsuccessful bid protest, Butterworth is negotiating final contract terms with DCF. A signed deal is expected by Nov. 1.
As president of Broward Behavioral, Butterworth led the company’s campaign to secure the lucrative, multi-year contract. Their bid was chosen over one made by Partnership for Community Health, a group of established Broward healthcare providers.
State procurement records obtained by BrowardBulldog.org show Butterworth assembled, signed and submitted a lengthy bid proposal on behalf of Broward Behavioral and its partner, Miami-based Concordia Behavioral Health.
Butterworth, a former Florida Attorney General and Broward County Sheriff, later participated in pre-award negotiations that included direct correspondence with DCF’s lead negotiator in which Butterworth advocated the merits of “BBHC/Concordia team’s” cost savings proposal.
HOLE IN THE LAW
One state ethics expert said Democrat Butterworth – also a former judge and prosecutor – may have taken advantage of holes in the lobbyist law.
“It’s like Swiss Cheese,” said Philip Claypool, the retired executive director and general counsel for the Florida ethics commission.
Florida law broadly defines lobbying as “seeking, on behalf of another person, to influence an agency with respect to a decision of the agency in the area of policy or procurement.”
But its definition of lobbyist is narrower, turning on questions of a person’s employment, pay and job description.
“I think there is an argument on both sides,” said Claypool. “The question would have to be determined by knowing who paid whom, for what, and when, as well as what communications were made, when and under what circumstances.”
The Florida ethics commission can investigate alleged failures to register or to submit a required compensation report. It does not initiate probes, but responds to sworn complaints.
Violators may be reprimanded, censured or prohibited from lobbying for up to two years. They can also be fined up to $5,000.
Butterworth declined several requests to discuss his push to obtain the DCF contract and explain why he is not registered to lobby executive branch agencies.
SELF-DECLARED LOBBYIST
Butterworth, who also serves as Broward Behavioral’s chairman, told Sun-Sentinelcolumnist Michael Mayo in June that Concordia – owned by Miami businessman Carlos Saladrigas – was paying him as both a lawyer and a lobbyist.
Carlos Saladrigas
That potentially conflicting relationship is not disclosed in Broward Behavioral’s proposal submitted to DCF, an agency that he ran from January 2007 to August 2008.
Butterworth’s financial arrangement with Broward Behavioral also is not discussed in the proposal documents. Company bylaws allow officers to be paid “reasonable compensation for their services.”
Nova Southeastern University law and legal ethics professor Robert Jarvis said Butterworth should have registered.
“We say we take seriously government in the sunshine. So having to register as a lobbyist is just part and parcel of that effort to make government as transparent as possible,” Jarvis said.
Carla Miller, a former federal prosecutor who now heads Jacksonville’s ethics office, said Florida’s lax lobbying requirements have allowed many to skate through without registering, including presidents of companies.
“There is an appearance that we are doing something to protect citizens when we aren’t, and that’s the bottom line,” said Miller, who founded CityEthics.org a dozen years ago to promote ethics in government. “Bob Butterworth has probably figured out the lobbying law. “
PRIVATIZING GOVERNMENT
The idea of using managing entities to privatize oversight of state substance abuse and mental health services was a DCF initiative under Butterworth, according to department documents.
The idea: to save millions of dollars in expenses that can be redirected to improving care in a state where such government-funded services have long lagged the rest of the nation.
In 2007, DCF held a public meeting to hear comment on “the role and functions of a managing entity” in advance of a planned procurement in southeast Florida, records say.
Last fall, DCF Secretary David Wilkins announced an “intent to negotiate” for the job of managing entity for Broward.
DCF Secretary David Wilkins
He said he expected “a significant number” of qualified nonprofits to submit sealed bids.
But there were only two bidders: Broward Behavioral and the Partnership for Community Health.
The Partnership was ranked higher by six of the state’s eight evaluators. It also had the highest score.
Broward Behavioral was deemed to be “nonresponsive” because it did not include required paperwork to demonstrate its financial stability.
Nevertheless, as DCF’s general counsel Marion Drew Parker has put it, a “wrinkle” in the competitive process allowed DCF to scrap the idea of sealed bids.
Negotiations started over, now with just a single DCF employee – instead of a committee – charged with recommending a winner, and Broward Behavioral came out on top.
The deal was delayed when the Partnership filed a 22-page bid protest alleging, among other things, that the contract award was illegally steered to Butterworth’s group.
DCF quickly denied the protest. The Partnership sued, but an appeals panel dismissed the case in August because it had neglected to post a required protest bond
The underlying corruption allegations were not addressed. A DCF spokesman has denied any impropriety.
Broward Bulldog reported last week that DCF awarded the contract to Butterworth’s group without required rules in place to promote public scrutiny.
Michael / October 5, 2012 11:49 am
The “Good Old Boy” network is alive and well. Sate politicians and ex politicians just can’t stay away from the trough. State statutes and regulations are only meant for the rest of us. How sad!
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Charlotte Greenbarg / October 10, 2012 12:08 pm
The entire not for profit industry needs to be closely examined. How many agencies and vendors are there? How much money is involved in funding them, including taxes, grants and outside donations? How many of them have huge administrative expenses?
Charity Navigator does list many of them and does a great job in providing infomation. But not all of them are listed there, and an outside auditing entity, aided by interested citizens including students, needs to inventory and begin the process.
Let’s make sure the needy get the help they need, the goal being to guide people to better lives. The highest form of charity is making it possible for people to stop having to depend on it.
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cavin cunningham / December 28, 2016 7:52 am
It seems like someone could create an app that connects these players to the drug companies addicting citizens that then get directed to agencies who are getting money from the state to manage their ‘care’. Breaking Bad meets Kevin Bacon.
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Edward Crespo / January 2, 2023 7:07 am
I’m not the least surprised that Butterworth is involved in this “shady deal.” During the time that he was Broward County Sheriff, he “turned his dogs loose” in the war on drugs. Nobody disputes the fact that drugs are bad and the people involved in the drug business should be held to account, but Butterworth’s deputies, especially his undercover units, got completely out of control with their “enforcement” techniques! He knew about it, but did NOTHING to stop it! MANY innocent people were arrested and convicted and now have felony convictions on their records that will follow them for the rest of their lives, merely so that Butterworth could “make the numbers look good” in the eyes of the public! Of course, as we all know and history shows, his efforts to curb the drug trade were USELESS and INEFFECTIVE! Nothing changed and “business as usual” continued in Broward County. He’s a real “business man” himself these days!
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