INDReporter

Advo: feds investigate Jindal administration contract

by Leslie Turk

Federal grand jury looks into awarding of $185 million contract to CNSI, where state health secretary Bruce Greenstein once worked.

[Update: Hours after this story broke, the Jindal administration canceled the controversial contract with CNSI, The Advocate reported. Read the followup story here.]

Through a public records request, The Advocate obtained a copy of a subpoena issued by a Baton Rouge federal grand jury seeking information on the $185 million contract Gov. Bobby Jindal's administration awarded in 2011 to Client Network Services Inc., more commonly referred to as CNSI.

Competing vendors cried foul at the time, claiming CNSI had low-balled the bid.

Although Department of Health and Hospitals Secretary Bruce Greenstein, a former CNSI exec, said in 2011 that he took himself out of the dealings over the contract, documents later showed that he influenced a change that made CNSI eligible to compete for the business, the paper reported.

DHH has since sought two increases in the contract, one for $9 million, which it got, and the other for $40 million - which the administration only recently decided would go through an RFP process.

All documents requested in the subpoena were to be returned to the grand jury by Jan. 30.

The subpoena sought:

Read the breaking story here.