E-mails counter DiMasi on Cognos
Suggest contract drew his interest
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The state's highest ranking education official wrote an e-mail to subordinates saying that House Speaker Salvatore F. DiMasi was "very interested" in a computer software contract and was "OK with" the winning bidder,
The e-mail, obtained by the Globe with a public records request, indicates that DiMasi did not want the contract to go to "a bidder he does not have confidence in," and that he used a trusted House lieutenant to intervene with the education commissioner.
As the Department of Education was planning to award the software contract in October 2005, then Commissioner David P. Driscoll sent an e-mail to his staff describing DiMasi's interest in the contract. The e-mail also suggests that Driscoll believed that picking Cognos would help win political support from the speaker for funding.
"The speaker was very inter ested in our bid for the data wharehouse [sic]," Driscoll wrote. "Now - his interest was in making sure we did not pick a bidder he does not have confidence in."
"We are close to awarding the contract to Cognos (which he is OK with) and I believe we could get his support for a $6m supp," Driscoll wrote, referring to a supplemental budget request for the contract.
While a batch of Department of Education e-mails obtained by the Globe fall short of saying that DiMasi specifically pushed for the controversial Cognos contract, they do indicate a level of involvement that the speaker has never publicly acknowledged.
DiMasi has sought to distance himself from controversies involving Cognos, a Burlington company that made nearly $2.2 million in payments to close friends and business associates of DiMasi as it was winning two lucrative state contracts - $1.8 million of which was never disclosed to state regulators.
"Speaker DiMasi had absolutely nothing to do with the awarding of this or any other contract by the administration," his spokesman, David Guarino, said in June when the Globe first reported about the controversial education contract.
Responding to Globe questions last week about the Driscoll e-mails, DiMasi issued a written statement saying that he never intervened on behalf of any contractor.
"As I have said repeatedly, I have never advocated anyone - including former Commissioner Driscoll - for any contract which the administration awarded, period. Anyone who suggests that I had an interest in a specific business or entity which received any state contract is just plain wrong. I remain greatly disturbed that my name and reputation continue to be unfairly called into question through innuendo and distortion."
Driscoll also denied last week that the speaker pushed for Cognos. Asked about the message, he said the speaker simply wanted to make sure the department did not award the contract to a company that had sold software to the court system. The judiciary was dissatisfied with the vendor, Driscoll said. He said he couldn't remember the company's name.
"If the Speaker were ever to say to me 'I think you ought to go with this one or that one,' it would violate a trust we had. It would never have occurred," Driscoll said in an interview last week.
The Driscoll e-mail provides an unusual window into how DiMasi's political leverage was perceived by a top official, Driscoll, who had served under three governors. The content also appears to contradict Driscoll's assertion to a Globe reporter earlier this year that there was no political interest in the awarding of the $4.5m Education Department contract to Cognos.
In late October 2005, a $925,000 contract was awarded to Cognos for a pilot program to test its data warehouse software. The next year, the software contract was expanded at a cost of $4.5 million, paid for through a House Ways and Means budget amendment.
That contract, and a $13 million technology contract awarded Cognos by the Executive Office of Administration & Finance in 2007, are now the subject of investigations by multiple agencies, including the FBI, the state Inspector General, and the state Ethics Commission. The inquiries are focused on DiMasi's close associates who received large, undisclosed payments from Cognos and its sales agent, Joseph Lally.
DiMasi is refusing to cooperate with an Ethics Commission demand for records, telling his colleagues last week in closed-door sessions that he is invoking a constitutional claim of legislative immunity from outside scrutiny of the activities of him and his staff.
Driscoll's e-mail introduces a previously undisclosed intermediary through which DiMasi apparently expressed his interest in the contract: Assistant majority leader Lida Harkins.
"He had Lida Harkins call me twice," Driscoll wrote in his Oct. 16 e-mail.
"I have absolutely no memory of that," Harkins said in an interview last week. "My interest was in being able to secure data we needed to make policy. I probably was asking when it would be ready, when it would be done. It was an interest of mine." Harkins was not on either an education or technology-related legislative committee.
Cognos was chosen over 10 other bidders for a yearlong pilot to test the data warehouse software, which let the department collect, track and share data about students, teachers, and finances collected from districts across the state.
Education department officials chose Cognos for the pilot though it ranked only fifth in raw scoring by a team of bid evaluators, according to documents reviewed last spring by the Globe.
Driscoll told the Globe earlier this year that he had never spoken to DiMasi about the contract and did not even know Lally, the Cognos sales agent who was described by other education officials as having unfettered access to the Education Department's building in Malden.
But in a separate e-mail, written June 10, 2006, Driscoll expresses a familiarity with Lally. He wrote the e-mail to the department's chief information officer as he strategized about how to win funding from the Legislature for the expanded Cognos contract.
"Ironically ran into the real COGNOS lobbyist (Lally takes his orders from him) Richard McDonough (son of the legendary "Sonny" McDonough) and after phone calls and my letter to the Speaker we are expecting . . . a mtg with the speaker in a couple of weeks to talk about about [sic] a supp. Keep confidential," Driscoll wrote.
Driscoll said last week he still doesn't "ever remember meeting or knowing" Lally, and that his name was merely mentioned to him by another state official.
Cognos or Lally paid McDonough, a registered lobbyist who is a close friend of the speaker, $1.45 million; DiMasi's accountant, Vitale, $600,000 in two lump sums; and Steven Topazio, a law associate of DiMasi's, $125,000 in a $5,000 a month retainer, according to records obtained by state Inspector General Gregory Sullivan.
In 2007, as he was seeking the $13 million contract, Lally bragged to state officials about his friendship with the speaker and told some state officials that DiMasi wanted Cognos to get a state contract, according to statements by state officials who have been interviewed by investigators. DiMasi has denied that Lally was speaking for him. Lally also offered a job to the department's chief information officer, Maureen W. Chew, who declined, Chew has told investigators.
Department of Education e-mails also show that
In a return e-mail sent on Jan. 27, 2006, Driscoll insisted, "It is not true that Cognos was rated #5 at any point. They were either #1 or # 2 in each phase and aspect. . . . I am satisfied that the process was thorough and fair," he wrote.
Driscoll said last week that he didn't remember why he told IBM that Cognos was ranked first or second, when it was actually ranked fifth overall.
Globe correspondent Stephen Kurkjian contributed to this report.
