A former city purchasing agent approved a price increase – without Board of Estimates approval – that so far has added $3.5 million to the coffers of an ambulance company that provides non-emergency transport for Medicaid clients, Inspector General Isabel Mercedes Cumming noted in a report issued today.
The contract involves a Harford County company that underbid an ambulance contract from longtime provider Transdev.
In 2018, the Board of Estimates approved the five-year, $33 million bid by Hart to Heart Transportation Services on the recommendation of then-Purchasing Agent Erin Sher Smyth. (Her name is not cited in today’s report, but it is found in publicly available records.)
“The deciding factor between the two [companies] was the lower pricing submitted by Hart to Heart,” Smyth told the spending board, according to a transcript of the panel’s June 27, 2018 meeting.
Shortly before the contract went into effect, however, Smyth approved higher rates after the company complained “its initial pricing was no longer financially viable due to a decrease in the projected service volume,” according to today’s report.
This came despite earlier notification to all vendors that no rate increases would be allowed during the contract’s initial term of service.
Alerted to the price boost by an anonymous complaint, Cumming’s staff reviewed the invoices that the city Health Department paid to Hart to Heart between early 2019 and May 2022.
They found that the department “paid...
What are journalists missing from the state of Delaware? What would you most like WHYY News to cover? Let us know. A Delaware doctor who ordered medically unnecessary genetic cancer tests for 103 ...