Reply #10: HARPER'S: The Inside Track to Contracts in Alabama

[L. Coyote]

The Inside Track to Contracts in Alabama
BY Scott Horton - September 3, 2007
http://harpers.org/archive/2007/09/hbc-90001109

For the last several weeks I’ve had some data on a very curious contract award made by the administration of Alabama Governor Bob Riley. I held off doing anything with it, and wondered: will the Alabama media pursue this story? Or is it completely dead? And it turns out that there are some vital life signs down in the Heart of Dixie.

The case involves a $3.7 million computer contract awarded a little more than a week ago to ACS Heritage, a part of Texas-based Affiliated Computer Services. ACS is a big player—a Fortune 500 company with some 58,000 employees. The curious thing is that the ACS bid was not the lowest bid by a very long shot; it was $500,000 more than the next bid. However, ACS had a decisive edge over its competitors: it hired Governor Riley’s former chief of staff, Toby Roth of Capitol Resources LLC.

State officials explain that there were factors other than just the price .....