State advances secretive contract to outsource jobs

The state has confirmed that it intends give a contract to outsource state personnel jobs to a new and small Seattle company owned by a young couple, Cara and Kurt Griffith.

With renewals, the contract with Tandem Motion LLC could be worth $28 million over the next two-and-a-half years.

The state decided on Aug. 7 that it intended to contract with Tandem Motion, but the state Department of Administration refused to release that information, requiring that I submit a public records request, delaying publication for some unknown reason.

The Dunleavy administration waited until Aug. 21 to reveal the “intent to award” decision, but has yet to say if the contract has been awarded or if one of the two other bidders has protested the decision. The contract is estimated to be $5.6 million for six months, with two one-year renewals possible.

Administration Commissioner Kelly Tshibaka is using the pandemic as an excuse to pursue an outsourcing project that was in the works before COVID-19. It may be called “Pandemic Preparedness Plan Phase 2—Personnel Management,” but this is a privatization project.

Tandem Motion’s website contains almost no details about specific projects the company has undertaken, though there is one testimonial under the testimonials link.

The company says Tandem Motion “is a workforce strategy consulting firm helping organizations align workforce objectives with the business strategy to create environments where people can do their best work.”

The handling of this outsourcing project by the Dunleavy administration is alarming, as is the attempt to claim this has something to do with the pandemic. The unjustified secrecy raises obvious questions about whether favoritism distorted the process and what the goals are.

It looks to me as if the state decided in advance that Tandem Motion would get the contract and that the procurement process was a sham.

The request for proposals required at a minimum, “Four years of experience in workforce management, performance management, or organizational design and development activities.”

Tandem Motion has only been in existence since May 17, 2019, when the paperwork was filed giving a Seattle address. It does not have four years of experience.

The state request for proposals also stipulated that a bidder complete “at least one project, similar in size, scope and complexity preformed for a local, state, or federal government entity. Note: one-year experience working with the State of Alaska is preferred but not required.”

Tandem Motion LLC registered with the state of Alaska on Oct. 5, 2019.

If Tanden Motion has completed a similar project for a government entity of similar size, scope and complexity since it was formed in May, 2019, what is it?

In 2019, Griffith served on the “Human Resources Enterprise Business Model Steering Committee,” an effort by Administration Commissioner Kelly Tshibaka to revamp HR for the state.

Griffith also worked on a pilot project to change the employee evaluation process at the Department of Environmental Conservation. She told DEC employees last November, in a video that has now been deleted, that she had a state contract with the administration department that ended Dec. 20.

“I’m doing this for DEC because I care about you guys and I want you to be successful,” she said to the DEC employees. “I’m actually contracted with DOA (Department of Administration). And so this is, you can call it pro bono or whatever you want to call it, but I’m contracted through DOA through Dec. 20. And in choosing, right, I’ve made the choice to draft DEC into his so that you guys can be part of the process.”

I wrote about the selection of Tandem Motion last fall for the state project. Tshibaka responded by saying that Tandem Motion was not a state contractor, but a subcontractor with Collins Alliance, the Seattle company that had received a no-bid contract for the HR work.

I wrote that Tandem Motion was a state contractor because that is what Griffith told DEC employees. Tshibaka said that I had made “several” false statements, but she did not provide details.

“Cara Griffith, formerly with Accenture, is volunteering her time to assist with the implementation of the pilot project at DEC because she is committed to the success of State of Alaska employees. I'm grateful for her service to Alaskans,” Tshibaka wrote last November.

Whether the volunteer work Griffith did at DEC is deemed part of her qualification for the latest contract is one of many questions that should be addressed, along with why the state set unreasonable timelines for the acceptance and review of proposals.

The request for proposals was posted July 24, with responses due by Aug. 3. The state planned to analyze the contracts Aug. 4 and select the recipient Aug. 5.

After protests, the state allowed contractors to respond until Aug. 5 to the personnel management proposal, but still claimed it would analyze the results in one day, which it did.

Setting aside one business day for review tells me that the recipient had been selected in advance and that the procurement process was a show trial, not to be taken seriously.

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