CHICAGO | Well aware the problem of corruption didn't start with Blagojevich, the panel groping for a way to stop listened to two and a half hours of testimony.
The message repeated was residents are jaded over: the extent of the power elected officials and their political appointees have over awarding state contracts and how nefariously they sometimes seem to wield it.
Gov. Pat Quinn created the Illinois Reform Commission in his first executive order as governor after he took over for the disgraced Rod Blagojevich. It is charged with traveling the state, analyzing a series of issues related to political corruption and developing recommendations for improvement.
To stop the cycle of pay-to-play, the reform panel is faced with figuring out how to deal with contractors willing to fork over money, elected officials eager to accept it -- or, in Blagojevich's alleged case, demand it -- and how to make taxpayers aware of how much more it ends up costing them.
"Here's the bottom line," said commissioner David Hoffman, inspector general for the City of Chicago, "our system is broken."
Hoffman said, in his experience, the more discretionary the procurement system, the easier it is for officials to steer contracts to their buddies.
He wasn't alone.
Karl Becker, who handled procurements for the Illinois Department of Corrections when he was deputy director during the 1990s, recounted an instance when Donnie Snyder, then-director, allowed an existing contract to expire so he could award two far more expensive "emergency contracts" to vendors. In return, the vendors kicked back a portion of the contract to Snyder.
"There was a total lack of transparency," Becker said. "No documentation was required for any of this." Snyder is now in prison.
Testimony spoke to agencies abuse of something known as Best and Final Offers calls, an often-discretionary step in procurement intended to allow vendors one final chance to make their best offer for a state contract and drive the price down. They alleged political appointees routinely subvert the system to give politically preferred vendors another chance to come in at the "right" number.
Basil Demczak, an inspector for the U.S. Postal Inspection Service, told the commission of his experience investigating procurement fraud.
"The thing that was most alarming, and most appalling, was the agency directors' abilities to overrule committees," Demczak said, referring to the many committees that exist throughout state government for vetting and awarding contracts.
"From a fraud and waste standpoint, the state trains, hires and spends thousands of dollars on professional people to do contracts who can be undermined by politically appointed agency heads."
