CONTRACT RAISES CONFLICT QUESTIONS

Florida drug czar James McDonough awarded a $1.45 million state
contract to a company whose managers include two men with whom he has
close ties.

The company, Camber Corp. of Huntsville, Ala., was selected over two
others vying for the security study of state seaports. Camber
submitted the highest bid.

The owner of the only minority-owned company to bid said she grew
concerned Camber might have an ``inside'' advantage after the
company's project manager tried to get her to drop her bid and work
for him as a subcontractor.

``I know our bid was good,'' said Earnestine McMillian, president and
founder of The Tracer Group Investigations and Security of Quincy.

Tuesday, McDonough acknowledged his ties to two Camber officials
involved in the bid, operations manager Joe Barto and project manager
Steve Hammond.

The personal relationships did not constitute a conflict of interest,
nor did they influence his decision to award Camber the contract, he
said.

``I did my level best to make it an objective evaluation,'' said
McDonough, who in addition to awarding the contract also sat on the
four-member committee that evaluated the three bids. ``I think what
influenced me was the strength of their contract.''

Another member of the evaluation committee, Marty McDonnell, an
assistant general counsel to Gov. Jeb Bush, said he was not aware of
McDonough's ties to Camber.

``I KNEW SOMEBODY in our shop had a relationship,'' said McDonnell,
who thought Camber's bid the strongest of the three submitted. ``I
trusted that would get flushed out.''

But the drug czar's ties to Hammond and Barto never came up, McDonnell
said Wednesday.

Bush, who has adopted a strict ethics policy for state agency heads,
did not respond to requests for comment Wednesday.

His ethics policy states that agency heads ``are expected to safeguard
their ability to make objective, fair and impartial decisions'' and
``avoid any conduct [whether in the context of business, financial or
social relationships] which might undermine the public trust.''

Hammond, as Camber's project manager, is overseeing the $1.45 million
port study, which is already under way. He is a former U.S. Military
Academy classmate of McDonough.

UNTIL LAST SUMMER, Hammond was general tax administration chief for
the state Department of Revenue in Tallahassee. He said he began
working for Camber on Oct. 1, two months before the contract was awarded.

McDonough's and Hammond's military careers overlapped in Vietnam and
the Army Staff College at Fort Leavenworth, where both were
instructors.

McDonough, however, said the two only developed a friendship after his
appointment as drug czar by Bush in February. Hammond was still
working for the Department of Revenue at the time.

The two lunched together, ate dinner at Hammond's home, and attended
their 30th class reunion at West Point in October.

The drug czar's trust and confidence in Hammond was so strong, he
sought Hammond's advice on internal office matters. McDonough said he
consulted Hammond before naming Albert Wollerman to be his acting
general counsel.

Wollerman worked for Hammond at the Department of Revenue.

WOLLERMAN, ALONG with McDonough and McDonnell, also sat on the
four-member panel that evaluated the bids. Wollerman, however, ranked
Camber's bid second best.

Hammond is not the only Camber company official to whom McDonough has
ties.

The drug czar said he has known Barto, Camber's operations manager in
Virginia, since at least 1991, when he and Barto collaborated on the
creation of an Army war operations manual.

The relationship continued after their military service, McDonough
said. In June, four months before Hammond started with Camber and six
before the ports study contract was awarded, Barto visited McDonough
in Tallahassee.

``Glad to see you're working Florida's national drug control
strategy,'' McDonough recalls Barto saying.

``I have an interest in supporting you any way I can. And by the way,
ports, I understand, is one issue. Let's talk about ports.''

During the conversation, Barto also said Hammond would be ``lead on
the project,'' McDonough said.

The call for bids on the port study went out in late
October.

The study is supposed to help stem the flow of illegal drugs and money
through Florida's 14 deep seaports by identifying security weak points.

THE COMPANIES that entered bids included Alabama-based Camber, The
Tracer Group of Quincy, and MGT of America with headquarters in
Tallahassee.

The three companies were scored independently by the evaluators,
McDonough said, and their points were averaged.

Despite having limited port experience, Camber had extensive
experience working for the military and other government agencies and
scored 78.5 points.

The company's bid was $1.45 million.

MGT, which proposed to do the study for $5,000 less, had more port
experience, but failed to include sufficient information on minority
subcontractor involvement, and earned 71.25 points.

The Tracer Group, which had experience doing security assessments for
private shipping companies, offered to do the study for $165,960 and
scored 58.75 points.

While evaluating the bids, McDonough said he never thought to excuse
himself from the deliberations because of his relationships with
Hammond and Barto.

``The decision on who does the port study has got to be part my
responsibility,'' he said.

``I spent 27 years in the military. Throughout that entire time, I
made decisions on groups of people, large groups.

``Decisions on who got promoted, who got reassignments to where, who
went to the appropriate schools.''