A privite security firm contracted by the State Department Of Public Welfare to provide security at the vacant Haverford State Hospital complex in Haverford has repeatedly failed to comply with the conditions of it's contract,according to a state investigation.
Auditor General Robert P. Casey Jr. said that the state has paid more than a half a million dollars to Kelly's Security Services Inc. of Glenmore, and that the seriousness, extent and duration of the company's failures indicate that the hospital complex is not secure, and that the taxpayers are paying for services that are not being provided.
"Our invesigation found substantial evidence that Kelly's failed to comply with the Haverford security contract's terms and conditions." Casey said. " These glaring deficiences, along with DPW's law oversight, raise troubling questions anout the entire contracting process, including why DPW repeatedly renewed and extended this security contract."
Jay Pagni, a welfare spokesmam, confirmed that the contract with Kelly's for Haverford was renewed last month, and that the state will pay the security firm $242,000 through June 2003.
" As a result of the Auditor General's investigation, we put together a work group and are doing an extensive review of this contract,"Pagni said. " Our own investigation is ongoing at this point, and once it is completed, if negligence on the part of the security company has been confirmed, they will either have to make the required modifications, or else terminate the contact."
The State's contract with Kelly's went into effect in the 1990; it has already payed the firm approximately $575,000.
According the the records of the Pennsylvania Treasury Department, Kelly's has had other contracts with the Welfare Department that bring the grand total taxpayers have paid Kelly's to $1 Million.
Casey's investigation found that Kelly's failed to comply with contract requirments concerning staffing, equipment, personal qualifications, and training at the site of the former mental hospital.
Casey's documents state that Kelly's failed to conduct comprehensive pre-employment investigations, including Pennsylvania State Police background checks on any of the individuals it hired for security guard positions at Haverford.
One employee Casey investigators that he began working as a security officer the same day he filled an application out. Several attempts yesterday to contact Kelly's Security Services were unsuccessul. Investigators also found that supervisors were not always on duty during day shifts as required by the contract, and that Kelly's overcharged taxpayers for this service.
Kelly's billed the state at supervisor' rates for one of the individual's working the day shift during a 26-month span when the employee's who actually worked in this position during the period were not supervisors 60 percent of the time.
"here were major discrepancies between what was submitted in support of Kelly's invoices and what was shown in the company's own records of in-sign sheets, daily activity reports, timesheets and logs for a period of over 14 months," Casey said. "These issues, along with the statements of Kelly's own employees, raise fundemental questions about whether the basic security requirments of the contracts are being met."
The investigation also found that Kelly's had no logs or other records to document that the second and third shifts were monitored at least two times per shift by an outside supervisor, and that the firm failed to have the required amount of security officers on duty during the period under review and it backdated the the days a security officer was on duty.
The contract also requir's Kelly's to provide two security vehicles per shift, and that they be stocked with communication and safety equipment.
The Investigation found that the vehicles to be devoid of the required equipment. For several weeks, both vehicles assigned to Haverford were out of service, forcing employees to use their own vehicles while on patrol.
One former Kelly's security officer said that the vehicle "belonged in a junk yard." Despite that fact that the vehicles were non-operational for months at a time, the state was still charged $500 dollars per week for the two vehicles. Investigators concluded that the state was improperly charged over $13,000 during the period under review.
Finally Kelly's provided the Auditory General's Office with no records to document, or verify that it's security officers had recieved the contractually required which includes fire safety. Pagni said there is no set time frame for the welfare department's investigation.
" We want to be as thorough as possible in this matter to insure that Haverford is looked after correctly," he said.