An independent audit has faulted New Mexico’s Children, Youth and Families Department (CYFD) for a no-bid procurement process involving Oakland startup, Binti. According to the state’s largest newspaper, Albuquerque Journal, which accessed the audit, the Bay Area startup was procured to “modernize the agency’s child welfare information system.”
Through Binti’s tech solutions the “state also might have wasted millions of dollars to develop a new data system without owning it.” (via Albuquerque Journal), as per the New Mexico-based CPA-firm, Jaramillo Accounting Group, which conducted the audit.
The audit follows a whistleblower lawsuit and ethics complaint that was filed last year by employees who were fired for raising questions about the multi-phase $45 million dollar no-bid procurement.
Last week, a New Mexico Ethics Commission officer dismissed the ethics complaint, which was made against Brian Blalock, ex-Secretary of CYFD. Blalock, described as a “San Francisco Bay Area Transplant” in an incriminating report by Searchlight New Mexico, investigative journalism non-profit, is said to have chosen Binti without considering over 20 other companies that were interested in the project.
The ethics complaint against Blalock was dismissed, because, as per the officer, the former CYFD cabinet secretary did not financially benefit from the procurement.
Speaking to Albuquerque Journal, Cliff Gilmore, one of two complainants, has said, “From the moment they knew they had a multi-million dollar project and pre-selected a vendor, they were circumventing state and federal procurement law.
“The dismissal rationale is the equivalent of saying they didn’t break the law because they had a driver’s license when the issue is they stole the car.”
Cliff Gilmore, has also filed a whistleblower protection lawsuit (which is still pending), along with his wife Debra Gilmore. Both former senior CYFD officials have accused the Department of retaliation.
They were not the only ones.
“According to interviews, at least half a dozen high-level employees have been reprimanded, resigned or were fired after they raised questions about Binti Inc.,” says the Searchlight report.
One of those employees, Jackson Williams, was sent a letter of reprimand and taken off the modernization project when he asked, “Who is Binti, and why are they in charge of this project?”
“‘Binti is the sacred cow at CYFD — you just can’t touch it,’ said Williams, who has more than 20 years of computer engineering experience both in government and the private sector. ‘Any questions about it are met with very quick retaliation’,” revealed Searchlight.
Binti was founded by Felicia Curcuru, who is also the current CEO of the company. In her response to the audit, Curcuru’s email to Albuquerque Journal, says there was nothing unusual about the procurement.
The attempted procurement of Binti was part of the Comprehensive Child Welfare Information Services (CCWIS) project. CCWIS, was introduced in 2015, offering states autonomy and flexibility in implementing their own data collection and case management IT systems. This was meant to be an overhaul of the legacy Statewide Automated Child Welfare Information System (SACWIS).
According to the ethics complaint (via Albuquerque Journal), Blalock “pressured CYFD staff to contract with a specific vendor, Binti, for New Mexico’s multi-million dollar CCWIS (comprehensive child welfare information services) project.”
Binti’s core product is a software and portal that streamlines the foster parent application and approval process, however, the company continues to position itself as offering “comprehensive solutions,” competing to provide CCWIS technology in several states – although, as the Searchlight New Mexico report states, “Binti was disqualified from competitive bids in several other states, including Maine and Louisiana, owing to its low scores.”
As per the audit, CYFD, then led by Blalock, “Cabinet Secretary (Brian Blalock) overrode certain purchasing controls and arranged for a no-bid award to a company from California,” (via Albuquerque Journal).
“No-bid business is often bad business, especially when public money is involved,” the editorial board of the newspaper wrote after accessing the independent audit.
“The audit is alarming. New Mexico would not have owned the data system, even after paying millions to develop it.
“Credit former state Supreme Court Chief Justice Barbara Vigil, who took over the agency in October, and her administration for putting the brakes on Binti. The audit says the state might have wasted millions had the four-year-contract not been cut short,” the board added.
The Gilmores also alleged that Blalock once told CYFD officials that he was friends with Felicia Curcuru. “Blalock wrote that he thought he first met Curcuru in 2016 at a conference in Las Vegas, Nevada, when he was director of the youth law practice at Bay Area Legal Aid,” as per the response received in the ethics case (via Albuquerque Journal).
Blalock, later in his prior job at a non-profit in San Francisco, had solicited help from a group of tech companies, including Binti, as per the ethics committee investigation.
The searchlight report states, “The stakes are enormous: CYFD’s decades-old computer system, an outdated program called FACTS, tracks everything related to the thousands of children in the department’s care, from adoption to juvenile detention to cases of abuse in foster homes. Binti, which has been paid $446,000 to date according to state records, will have to develop a brand-new program that can take over and improve all of those functions.”
Nmvoices publication states that New Mexico, for the fourth time since 2013, ranks 50th nation in child well-being. ”This state profile shows how our children are faring on the 16 indicators of child well-being used in the national KIDS COUNT rankings.”, as per the 2020 kids count profile.
“There simply aren’t many foster families in the system. Not before COVID and certainly not during the pandemic.” stated ABQ news. 1525 children entered into CYFD custody in 2019 which dropped to 1209 in 2020.
“This isn’t just some abstract, inconsequential computer program,” says child welfare data expert and former CYFD bureau chief, Katherine Ortega Courtney.
As per Courtney, at the system’s failure, the state will not know where are the kids and what’s happening to them. At searchlight article she has said, “Each one of those data points is an actual child’s life.”
In its previous attempts at securing CCWIS contracts in other states, the Oakland start-up was disqualified for the following parameters (among others): a small company with no experience in large scale projects, limited resources, and limited experience with programs outside of child placement; often Binti’s score was among the lowest in comparison with other companies bidding for large system overhauls.Under Blalock leadership, two children that were known to be at risk by CYFD lost their lives, resulting in their death – a one month old boy and a 2-year-old girl. An article by searchlight states that Blalock has been accused of a series of “administrative missteps” including his policy to direct the CYFD staff to use encrypted messaging app ‘Signal’. The app was used for official state business and then setting the texts for automatic deletion.