Texas Ditches Plan To Privatize Terrell State Hospital
A $30 million deal to privatize Terrell State Hospital is dead following a scathing audit that raps the state health commission for bypassing its own contracting procedures.
The Texas Health and Human Services Commission canceled the deal — which was still being negotiated — immediately following the Wednesday release of a report by Texas State Auditor John Keel, commission spokeswoman Stephanie Goodman said.
The review of the deal is the latest setback for Texas Health and Human Services Executive Commissioner Kyle Janek. The commission is already being investigated for the way it awarded a $20 million anti-Medicaid fraud software deal to a single bidder in 2012. And late last year, a state audit dinged the agency for a messy telecommunications contract with AT&T that ballooned from $48 million to $80 million.
In this latest report, the state auditor took issue with the commission's October decision to tentatively select Geo Care LLC to run the hospital, one of the state's 10 psychiatric facilities. The audit found that the commission undervalued the contract and skipped having the deal blessed by the Texas Attorney General's office, as required.
Read more: http://www.texastribune.org/2015/03/25/hhsc-ditches-plan-privatize-terrell-state-hospital/