Editorial: McCrory should face prison contract issue

Gov. Pat McCrory is compounding problems with a prison maintenance contract by complaining that reporting on the deal is unfair and the appearance of pay-to-play politics is untrue.

A News & Observer report Saturday described circumstances around the state contract extension sought by the governor’s Charlotte friend and political contributor, Graeme Keith. The matter has raised enough red flags that the FBI has interviewed several parties in the deal.

Damning assessments that the contract extensions worth $3 million appeared to be payback were contained in a texts and a memo written by the governor’s appointee, Department of Public Safety Secretary Frank Perry, and by members of the DPS staff. If the governor has an issue with how the deal has been described, it’s with his own people, not the newspaper.

That McCrory is choosing to play the victim of a false characterization suggests that he doesn’t understand the weight of his position or his responsibility to serve – and to appear to serve – the public interest before all else.

In the current case, Perry objected to renewing Keith’s maintenance contracts with two prisons, and the governor responded by brokering and attending an October 2014 meeting in Charlotte that included Keith, Perry and DPS staff. According to a DPS memo, Keith said at the meeting that he had contributed a lot of money and it was time for him to get something back.

The governor says he did not hear Keith’s demand. Perhaps, but he was obviously aware of his friend’s discontent. That’s why the meeting occurred and why he added the weight of his own presence. Nonetheless, Perry stood by his view that handing out work to a private company at a few prisons rather than having it done by state employees was not cost-effective and presented a risk to prison security.

McCrory then turned to state Budget Director Lee Roberts to decide whether extending the contracts made sense for taxpayers. Roberts, unfortunately, agreed to give the contract extensions the gloss of an endorsement from the state’s top number cruncher, though he showed scant data to support his conclusion. Beyond that, the issue wasn’t simply about dollars. Perry, a former FBI agent, had valid concerns about the risks of letting contract employees into a prison environment, and his concerns should have prevailed. Instead, the contracts were extended a day before they were to expire.

In this matter, only Perry and DPS staff appear to have put the interests of the taxpayers and the security of prisons first. The governor, rather than complain, ought to admit that he erred in intervening and promise that future contracts at DPS and all agencies will be decided on their merits and with proper legislative oversight.

This story was originally published November 2, 2015 at 7:01 PM with the headline "Editorial: McCrory should face prison contract issue."