No-Bid AIDS Contract Draws Dissent

Amid questions about the way Los Angeles County doles out grants to combat AIDS, a divided Board of Supervisors approved a nearly $200,000 contract Tuesday with a private nonprofit agency without accepting competing bids.

The 3-2 vote comes at a tumultuous time for the county Office of AIDS Programs and Policy, which recommended the award and is responsible for granting $82.5 million in federal and state funding for education and treatment programs.

On Friday, another major treatment provider sued the county, alleging bias in the way those contracts are awarded. Two weeks ago, the office’s director was removed after a county investigation into allegations that he solicited contributions from county contractors while working for Mayor-elect Antonio Villaraigosa’s campaign.

The contract approved Tuesday requires AltaMed, which operates clinics in the eastern and southeastern parts of the county, to hire an additional employee to encourage young, gay Latino men to seek AIDS and HIV-infection prevention and treatment services.

Supervisors questioned the way the county AIDS office selected AltaMed. County auditors are investigating a tip that AltaMed did not adequately provide AIDS and HIV-related services under other county contracts.

“You have an entity ... being awarded a contract under investigation by our auditor-controller,” Supervisor Don Knabe said. “I just have a very hard time on a sole-source situation like that making that award.”

John Schunhoff, chief operating officer of the county Public Health Agency, told supervisors that AltaMed was chosen because of its track record in providing AIDS services to Latino men.

The four-year contract uses a federal grant to pay AltaMed. Schunhoff said county health officials had only four weeks to submit a proposal to Washington for the grant and thus didn’t have time to seek other bids.

Supervisor Gloria Molina, in whose district many of AltaMed’s clinics are located, asked county public health officials to avoid similar problems in the future by allowing other nonprofit agencies the opportunity to register themselves to be considered for such contracts.

Nevertheless, she voted with Supervisors Zev Yaroslavsky and Yvonne Brathwaite Burke to approve the contract. Knabe and Supervisor Mike Antonovich cast the dissenting votes.

Last week, the AIDS Healthcare Foundation filed a lawsuit alleging that the county had allowed the former director of the AIDS office, Chuck Henry, to award contracts to agencies he had ties with and to punish those with which he did not.

County health officials declined to comment on the suit but said they awarded contracts fairly and based on merit.

In the lawsuit, foundation President Michael Weinstein accuses Henry of retaliating against him -- for complaints he made -- with a series of “arbitrary and punitive and other programmatic audits” and attempts to reduce funding for the foundation.

Earlier this month, county auditors accused Weinstein’s organization of overcharging the county $348,000 for services provided to AIDS patients at the group’s Carl Bean House hospice in Los Angeles.