The New Mexico Department of Children, Youth, and Family is going back a controversial decision to have a single software company upgrade its data systems without accepting proposals for the project.
Instead, the youth welfare office plans to initiate a competitive tendering process for the completion of future parts of the overhaul of the software system.
Since June 2020, the department has had exclusive contracts with the technology company Binti to modernize its comprehensive information system for child welfare. The California-based software company was hired to streamline the state’s grooming and adoption processes through the system upgrade.
Binti has been the only tech company working on the project since its inception – a decision that has raised concerns among some CYFD employees.
Cliff and Debra Gilmore, two former agency employees who filed a whistleblower lawsuit against the department after both were fired earlier this year, claimed the project had “no real scope” even after two years of work.
Debra Gilmore joined a working group that oversaw the project. According to the couple’s lawsuit, the team had no plan for how the project would meet federal requirements.
Along with the whistleblower complaint, the no-bid contract sparked an ethics complaint against former CYFD Cabinet Secretary Brian Blalock and Assistant Secretary Terry Locke, alleging violations of the New Mexico Procurement Code and the Governmental Conduct Act.
Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham announced in August that Blalock, who was also targeted for the agency’s use of an encrypted messaging system, was stepping down. Retired New Mexico Supreme Court Justice Barbara Vigil has been appointed to replace him and began serving in the position earlier this month.
Locke wrote in an email last week that CYFD plans to “evaluate additional options” through a competitive bidding process expected to begin in early 2022.
“The decision was made jointly by Human Resources and CYFD before Barbara Vigil took up her role as department secretary,” said Locke.
Binti co-founder and CEO Felicia Curcuru said in an interview on Friday that the company’s first contract with CYFD was in June 2020 for the development of two modules in a region of New Mexico. Six months later, the company signed a second contract for nearly $ 440,000 to bring the modules to market nationwide.
State records show that the state has paid $ 450,060 to Binti since June 2020.
Curcuru said she founded Binti in 2017. She was inspired when she saw her sister go through a complicated and stressful process of adopting two children, she added.
Binti works with 170 agencies in 24 countries on similar software projects. His clients include the Los Angeles and San Francisco counties. New Mexico was the first state government to work with Binti, Curcuru said, but the company now works with four other states.
“We have shown really positive results,” said Curcuru. “New Mexico approves more families faster than the year before within a year of working with us, which is really the main goal.”
The company’s annual contract expires at the end of the year, but Binti hopes to continue working with the department.
“When states suspend [a request for proposals] We look at that and see if it matches our product and if so we would be very interested, ”said Curcuru.
Curcuru said her company has not seen the level of skepticism and controversy in any other state or county as it has in New Mexico. All of the work for CYFD was done legally, she added.
When asked if CYFD was satisfied with Binti’s work, Locke wrote in an email: “CYFD is currently in the process of conducting a thorough analysis of the use and satisfaction of the two Binti modules by the department.”
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