The Maine Department of Health and Human Services’ (Maine DHHS) Office of Aging and Disability Services (OADS) issued a no-bid contract worth nearly $800,000 in taxpayer money to house a non-citizen at an Oakland residential care facility, state contract documents obtained by the Maine Wire reveal.
The shocking cost of the taxpayer-funded medical care the Mills Administration provided for a single non-working non-citizen began Feb. 2022.
But it was only proposed via the legally required Project Justification Form (PJF) months later in June 2022 — and it was only approved several months later in Oct. 2022.
That means Maine’s Department of Health and Human Services spent the money through a non-competitive no-bid arrangement prior to fulfilling its legal obligation to provide notice and obtain authorization.
Such a brazen flouting of procurement rules is one of the many significant deficiencies and material weaknesses State Auditor Matt Dunlap flagged in his recent audit of more than $2.1 billion in state spending for fiscal year 2024.
The PJF — a document used when the state issues a Notice of Intent to Waive Competitive Bidding (NOI) prior to entering into a no-bid contract — reveals that the Mills Administration authorized payments totaling $766,327 to Bedside Manor in Oakland, Maine, to provide specialized care for the noncitizen.
An amendment to the contract added roughly $43,000 to the original contract amount of about $766,000 in order to cover the Provider Service Tax, bringing the total expenditure in taxpayer dollars to over $800,000.
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Bedside Manor is a private residential care facility that specializes in memory care services for individuals with Alzheimer’s disease and dementia located in Oakland, just north of Augusta.
It’s unclear why the individual was under Maine State Guardianship or present in the United States at all.
The state contract indicates that prior to the contract, the noncitizen had been in the hospital for over a year, and that the state had unsuccessfully attempted to house the individual in 15 other facilities before Bedside Manor accepted them.
The contract also states that the noncitizen “is and will remain” ineligible for MaineCare (Maine’s Medicaid program), Medicare, and Medicaid “based on immigration status” — meaning the individual is not a lawful permanent resident of the United States.
“An individual, under Maine State Guardianship, is and will remain, ineligible for MaineCare/Medicaid and Medicare based on immigration status and has been in the hospital for over a year,” the PJF reads.
“Bedside Manor, of Oakland, Maine, is a Residential Care Facility that provides specialized assisted living services,” it reads. “It has been the only facility so far to accept this individual for admission.”
“In the past year, the Department has directly communicated with 15 facilities and been unable to secure a placement until Bedside Manor.”
According to the contract, the daily rate at Bedside Manor is $300, which the Department stated is “an average cost for his level of care compared to Medicaid rates, which are considered fair and reasonable.”
“These [costs] cover the facility’s normal rates and includes additional funding for services provided,” the Department stated.
Maine DHHS/OADS also indicated that they would not be issuing a Request for Proposals (RFP) to initiate a competitive bidding process for the services as “[t]here are very few facilities with beds available for this service.”
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The original total contract amount was $766,327 — meaning that at the given daily rate of $300, the contract would pay for the noncitizen to be housed in the residential care facility for about 2,554 days, or roughly seven years.
However, the term for the contract given in the Department’s PJF is Feb. 21, 2022, through June 30, 2027, a period of 1,955 days or just over five years, suggesting that the contract amount may cover additional costs beyond the daily rate.
Last year, in March, the Maine Wire requested all documents related to no-bid contracts issued by the Mills Administration.
As typically happens with requests for public records submitted to DAFS, the request went totally ignored for more than three months. When DAFS finally responded, the agency claimed that it was not capable of providing documents like the one included in this story.
“As follow-up to your FOAA request for ALL records related to Notices of Intent to Waive Competitive Bidding, from January 1, 2018 forward, it is not possible within the current computer systems to produce an Excel download of the information you have requested,” an anonymous DAFS employee wrote in a July 1, 2024 email.
“The scope is quite extensive. We are still in the process of identifying the documents that fall under the scope of your request, the format and locations that those records are stored, and the available options for compiling the large volume of materials you’ve requested. Taking into consideration the 4th of July holiday, staff vacations, and the fiscal year end, we anticipate being able to be back in touch regarding your request by Friday, July 12,” the employee said.
“At that time, it is likely that you will be asked to narrow your request. If there are specific procurements of particular interest to you, that could be searched for based upon more unique identifying details, such as the name of the awardee or type of services contracted, those records may be able to be turned around more expediently,” they said.
The agency never responded to the request. That’s something of a pattern for DAFS, an agency which regularly ignores the Maine Wire’s FOAA requests — illegally — for more than 600 days.
In addition to failing to adhere to the public transparency rules, the department has also frequently failed to follow the rules for spending taxpayer dollars through non-competitive, non-transparent processes, according to State Auditor Dunlap’s 2024 report.
Despite the clear evidence of mismanagement and neglect for the law, DAFS Commissioner Figueroa, a long-time friend of Gov. Janet Mills, insisted during a legislative hearing on Monday that her leadership of the agency has been unfairly maligned in the media.
Steve Robinson and Edward Tomic contributed to this story.
