Once again, another Florida Hospital, Jackson Health Systems, screwed up again. According to their local County Inspector General, they awarded sole source contracts for "emergency venitlation and air conditioning" work to a contract without competitive bids. They awarded $1.7-million in contracts to CT Mechanical, which then submitted vague lump sum invoices and failed to get building permits on 17 projects.
http://www.miamiherald.com/2011/10/14/2454079/inspector-general-criticizes-jackson.html
This all happened while they already had two local businesses approved for the work.
The Jackson Health Systems staff claimed the work was only awarded to CT Mechanical because Jackson was so poor in paying vendors that few would do the work for them.
Anyway, this shows that a Inspector General is what is needed to unveil these types of practices, and Lake County does NOT have one.
Since our own North Lake County Hospital District gives $9-12 million to three local hospitals without any spending rules or internal audits (they have financial audits, which are different), the hospitals could be doing the same thing and the taxpayers would not have a clue.
Watch this blog for updates on the North Lake County Hospital District. And, probably more on Jackson Health, since they seem to have a screwup about every two months. Apparently Florida State government doesn't exercise any oversight on fiscal screwups of Hospitals.
vj
