Local Agent Files Complaint with County Over Insurance Bids for Employees
December 31st, 2009 by Joe BurgessLocal insurance agent, Tommy McLemore, who had placed a bid for the contract for the Drew County employees insurance contract, filed a complaint with the county’s insurance committee.
McLemore’s complaint was that bids were allowed to be modified after they were originally presented to the county.
In last week’s quorum court meeting, the JP’s voted to accept the services of the Hatcher Agency of Little Rock, over McLemore’s local agency. (The Hatcher Agency also has the insurance contract for Drew Memorial Hospital.)
The essence of McLemore’s complaint is that Lambert’s agency should not have been able to reduce his agency’s fees to match McLemore’s. Other items that were modified and/or discussed after or during the earlier insurance committee presentations by the agents included Cobra compliance, employee insurance handbooks, and life/vision/dental coverage.
Tuesday’s meeting included County Clerk Lyna Gulledge reading a letter from County Attorney Cliff Gibson, which stated that legal statutes don’t require counties to follow the bid process for insurance for employees. It was also pointed out that the advertisement for bids was very general and non-specific.
Judge Damon Lampkin opened the program for both McLemore and Hatcher’s Drew Lambert to comment on the situation. McLemore informed the court that this was now a “if you lose, you lose: and if you win, you lose.” situation. He added that ” it’s in the best benefit of the county and the employees, with such short notice, that I’m withdrawing my consideration from the bid process.” (McLemore’s statement is at the 15:00 point in the video above.)
Choose another article
Newer article: New Year’s Eve: Some Folks go to Church, Some Folks go to Jail
Older article: “Let Somebody Else Drive,” John Anderson, 1983
sounds like some people i’ve had dealings with. take my local bid to use as leverage against an out of town vendor.
Its kind of strange how rules seem to change to suit the rulemakers.
This sounds like typical political maneuvering. If the county is not required to follow ‘the bid process’ then why have the bid process to begin with. Using simple logical reasoning, it sounds like the bids were simply used as a tool to get the insurer they ‘actually wanted’ to lower their price. But on the flip side, who’s to say someone didn’t get some kickback to contribute to this effort. The county did save some money here using the ‘bid process’ their not required to follow. It’s get what you can, however you can. You have to ask yourself, if the deal was a ‘done deal’ why would the lower bidder need to withdraw. The withdrawing would indicate that the process is still open. If so, it’ll be interesting to see if the higher bider re-raises their bid now that the lower one is gone. In either case, the winner may have a complaint of their own as well. Bottom line, the county wanted the same insurer as DMH and used the ‘not required to follow’ bid process to get a lower rate thereby swindling the higher bidding to lower their rate, with or without the help of the lower bidder and this is simply the final scene in the play or the lower bidder was simply a pawn used by the county to get what it wanted as the play suggests. In either case someone was getting the shaft. If it looks bad and it smells bad….
Who knows what to believe anymore!
Happy New Year!
And a big ‘Get well soon’ to RHL
This all goes back to our “Community” We all are told to shop local, to keep our community in business, why not keep these bids to the local? This all doesn’t make any sense. Like dittohead stated, it was all planned from the begginning.