88m3
Fast Money & Foreign Objects
Education Dept. awards debt-collection contract to company with ties to DeVos
You guys are cool with this huh?
You guys are cool with this huh?
What are you upset about? The article says that "Education Department spokesman Nathan Bailey said Thursday that DeVos had “no knowledge, let alone involvement,” in the new debt-collection contract. Richard Zubek, who heads investor relations at Performant, said in an email that the company “has never had any direct or indirect contact with Secretary DeVos or anyone related to Mrs. DeVos.”"So you guys are really fine with this?
Performant’s management was rated “marginal,” while its past performance as a contractor was deemed “satisfactory.”
“It is beyond dispute that the [Education Department’s] decisions have, at a minimum, created the appearance of a conflict of interest,” Canni said. “Given the fact that Performant was not a highly rated [company] and, in fact, was rated fairly low . . . the agency will be under intense scrutiny and will need to explain how suddenly these ratings changed so significantly to allow Performant to leap frog over so many other qualified [companies].”
In awarding the contract Thursday, the Education Department said in court filings that Performant and Windham’s proposals were “the most advantageous to the government.”