Gianforte Admin Is Paying Out-of-State Corporate Consultants $600/Hour on the Taxpayers’ Dime
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Friday, September 15th, 2023
CONTACT
hadley@montanademocrats.org
State’s Health Department picks most expensive bid proposal to oversee Behavioral Health efforts
Helena, MT – Governor Gianforte’s Administration, which has overseen a calamitous collapse of health care coverage, providers, services, and affordability in Montana and is known for forking over millions of dollars to private out-of-state corporate consulting firms to “fix” the crisis, has recently inked a new eye-watering deal with a New York based consulting firm. Montana taxpayers will soon be on the hook to pay out-of-state corporate consultants more than $600 an hour to “reform” Montana’s behavioral health care system, which includes mental health, substance abuse treatment and developmental disabilities services, according to reporting by Montana Free Press.
The contract, inked with Marsal and Alvarez, will pay the New York based firm between $5 and $10 million dollars to “oversee” reforms to the state’s behavioral health programs.
The pay structure, which Montana taxpayers will be covering, is:
$632.50 per hour for senior professionals
$517.50 per hour for junior professionals
$460 per hour for support staff
The consultants’ work is expected to take up to 12 months, and could delay disbursement of critical funds to serve Montanans until it has been completed.
“There are Montanans smart enough to do this work, yet this administration continues to send our tax dollars, millions and millions, to East Coast corporate consultants,” said Rep. Mary Caferro, (D-Helena) in a statement on Thursday. “The outsourcing of Montana jobs and businesses is happening in so many different parts of our government it makes my head spin. And all on the taxpayers’ dime.”
BACKGROUND:
Governor Gianforte's style of “leadership” has become crystal clear:
Kick the can down the road
Blow millions of dollars on outside consultants to tell us what we already know
Then ignore the recommendations.
In 2021, Democratic legislators and Montana community health care providers fought the Republican majority and the Governor to pass a provider rate increase, to ensure Montana health care facilities that rely on Medicaid funding could remain open. Instead, the Republicans decided to greenlight a $2.75 million dollar study, to “study” the problem.
The Guidehouse study told us exactly what Montana health care providers had been saying: The state needed to increase the Medicaid rate for providers in order to meet the demand.
The following legislative session, Montana Democrats brought a bill to meet the recommendations of the Guidehouse study – the Republicans killed most of the efforts. It took months of fighting by Democratic lawmakers and Montanans across the state for the Republicans to finally agree to adequately increase provider rates.
Montanans have every reason to fear that the Gianforte Administration is going to repeat their costly mistakes, and Montanans seeking behavioral and mental health care services will be the ones who suffer.
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