D.C.'s Contract Appeals Board (DCCAB) has recently cancelled the contract for the Camp Springs, Maryland -based nonprofit Synergistic Inc. DCCAB believes they've found "pervasive" failures and irregularities with the contract award process. The organization also says that around a dozen other companies actually submitted better bids to participate in the D.C. Youth Job Training Program than the ones that were selected.
DCCAB is comprised of administrative judges. DCCAB Chief Judge Marc D. Loud, Sr., said in a legal opinion, "There should now be a growing sense of alarm among the procurement and program professionals charged with implementing" the youth employment contracts.
Loud also said that this has been the third straight solicitation for youth unemployment services that's been problematic.
Several organizations in the District are outraged that Synergistic Inc had been receiving several of the contracts. WAMU's Patrick Madden reported,
Sean Segal is with the Urban Alliance, one of the groups that lost out to Synergistic and later protested the contract. He was floored when he heard they were awarded the youth training job.
"Honestly, I've done youth employment work in the District for the past six year and my gut reaction was 'who are these people?'" Segal says.
A visit to Synergistic Inc.'s office building in Camp Springs, Md. doesn't necessarily yield an answer to that question. City records list its suite number as 205, but that suite didn't appear to exist in the building.
But at suite 206, which is where a consulting company called The Helix Group operates, was Brian Derby. He’s the CEO of the Helix Group and is listed as the secretary of Synergistic Inc. His wife, Sabrae Derby, is listed as president of Synergistic.
The DCCAB got involved when the organization Urban Alliance filed an appeal against Synergistic Inc getting a contract.
Derby isn't interested in going on record about anything, but as Madden reports, IRS records show that Synergistic Inc. received somewhere between $400,000 and $750,000 annually from D.C., nearly $200,000 was spent on the Derby's salaries, plus, an additional $200,000 each year is often spent in consulting fees. Madden says, The recipient of that money was The Helix Group, which as records show, is run by the same couple and based out of the same office space.
All-in-all, to many looking into it appears that Synergistic Inc. is paying The Helix Group, and as The Washington Post's Mike DeBonis reports, one group is paying the other hundreds of thousands of dollars in consulting fees in addition to hundreds of thousands of dollars in salaries it pays to the couple who runs both groups.
DCCAB also said that District government has not followed its own solicitation guidelines and is in clear violation of procurement law, but back in September 2011, D.C.'s procurement director, James Staton Jr., said the city “followed the book on this process.”
"It's depressing that these organizations are making money off these kids the way they are," said northeast D.C. resident Gabriel. "They are hiding behind the image of helping D.C. kids, and it just isn't right, you know."
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