Walker donors' firm got biggest contract; County won't reveal who ranks proposals

We've been reading -- everywhere except in the Journal Sentinel, which continues its blackout -- about Phoenix Care Systems' relationship with Milwaukee County and Phoenix's executives financial relationship with the campaigns of County Exec Scott Walker.

Eye On Wisconsin has led the charge, reporting first on a no-bid $250,000 contract to the firm and another $1.2-million contract awarded to Bell Therapy, a Phoenix subsidiary, even though Bell ranked sixth in a field of eight firms. Walker has since returned $325 in contributions, about 10% of what he has received from Phoenix executives.

Gretchen Schuldt, a recovered JS reporter who runs the Story Hill Neighborhood website, has investigated further.

She found that all of the firms ranked higher than Bell also got contracts in that process although Bell, which came in sixth, got the biggest contract. The other firms which scored higher were awarded contracts one-fourth to one-half the size of the $1.2-million Bell contract.

When she asked who did the evaluations and rankings, Schuldt was told that the county does not release those names. Those who do it are citizens and volunteers, the county told her, and keeping the names private makes it easier to recruit people.

Schuldt says:

The practice also, however, prevents the public from being able to identify potential conflicts-of-interest among the evaluators.

The records released by the county do not definitively answer whether Walker's camp exerted any political influence in the contract awards to Bell, and the blackout imposed on the evaluators' identities by the Walker administration makes that even more difficult to determine.