Sen. Treat: Scathing state audit findings cause ‘grave concern’
- Oops!Something went wrong.Please try again later.
- Oops!Something went wrong.Please try again later.
OKLAHOMA CITY (KFOR) — Oklahoma Senate President Pro Tempore Greg Treat told reporters Thursday a state audit revealing how certain state agencies misspent federal funds caused him “grave concern.”
News 4 reported earlier this week the audit revealed two state agencies— where Oklahoma Secretary of Tourism Shelley Zumwalt previously served in leadership roles— awarded an IT-company no-bid contracts worth millions of dollars beginning in 2020.
In total, the state has paid the company—Oklahoma City based ‘Phase 2’—more than $21 million from the no-bid contracts.
State auditor releases report, determines OMES lacks oversight and violated Oklahoma law
Zumwalt personally signed off on more than $8 million in contract extensions with Phase 2 during her tenure as director of the Oklahoma Employment Security Commission (OESC).
The audit revealed Zumwalt’s husband is the Vice President of Phase 2.
It also revealed, when Zumwalt submitted official disclosure forms about the contracts, she indicated she was not “involved in any related-party transactions” and her “spouse or dependents were not involved” either.
That led to Oklahoma Attorney General Gentner Drummond calling for her to resign after the audit was released on Tuesday.
At a press conference Tuesday evening, Zumwalt declined.
“I will not be resigning,” Zumwalt told reporters.
Zumwalt: “I will not be resigning” after scathing audit released
State Auditor Cindy Byrd told News 4 the contracts awarded to Phase 2 should have been put out for competitive bidding, per a previous executive order from Governor Stitt.
“If they had put out a competitive bid process, they could have asked that question and they could have made sure that any high dollar award for a contract did not have a related-party transactions,” Byrd said.
Zumwalt argued that didn’t need to happen because of emergency rules that had been put in place exempting certain federal pandemic relief funds from the competitive bidding process.
“I think that in that situation we had a declaration of emergency and I was following the law that happened there,” Zumwalt said.
At his weekly press conference Thursday, Oklahoma Senate President pro Tempore Greg Treat (R-Oklahoma City) said the whole situation raises questions for him.
“I’ve read parts of Auditor Byrd’s audit and it causes me grave concern,” Treat said.
Treat said, like Byrd, he’s not so sure those no-bid contracts with Phase 2 qualified for that emergency ‘no-bid’ exemption.
Video below is the raw news conference conducted by Shelley Zumwalt after the
release of the audit.
He said he thinks the situation is an example of state leaders, including Governor Stitt, allowing an agency to abuse emergency rules, and spend pandemic funds with no oversight.
“The CARES Act funds came out in a very unique time in our nation’s history, and the [U.S.] Congress really didn’t give [state] legislatures a lot of say in it,” Treat said. “The governors around the country had a lot of control over it. We witnessed a very difficult circumstance—to give [Governor Stitt] due credit—during the height of COVID. But we saw some really shaky standards being put into place with not any oversight and preferential treatment of certain vendors.”
Governor Stitt names Shelley Zumwalt as Oklahoma Secretary of Tourism
He says state legislators have put forward some bills aiming to strengthen the state’s central purchasing rules on competitive bidding, but there are also some others looking to do the exact opposite.
Watch the entire raw news conference conducted by Shelley Zumwalt after the audit was
released.
“We’ve done some bills out here trying to deal with central purchasing,” Treat said. “[But] there’s been some bills floating around to exempt people from central purchasing, which causes me great pause during this time.”
The day before the audit was released, Shelley Zumwalt voiced support for legislation that would allow her Department of Tourism to be exempt from competitive bidding on certain contracts.
After the audit came out, reporters asked her if she still supported that idea.
“I think if I were a lawyer, I would say leading question on that one,” she responded.
When pressed further, she said she ultimately had changed her mind.
“I actually spoke before the Senate Rural Caucus this morning,” she said. “And I was very transparent with them. And I said, I think it looks like we need to go back to the drawing board on that one because they weren’t supportive of it.”
For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to KFOR.com Oklahoma City.
