Katie Castellani
State House News Service

MassDOT’s failed attempt to find a new operator for 18 highway service plazas across the state was filled with flaws that “undermined the integrity” of the process, the state inspector general said in a Feb. 27 letter to interim Transportation Secretary Phil Eng.

Inspector General Jeffrey Shapiro's office found several problems with how MassDOT went about finding an operator to run the service plazas for at least the next 35 years, including inadequate conflict of interest controls, selection committee members not following certain instructions around recording their scoring justification, a risk of perceived bias from MassDOT’s use of live and in-person scoring, and a feeling among the Capital Programs Committee that members did not have enough time or information to approve the procurement.

The Inspector General also found MassDOT didn’t follow some of its own procedures. Collectively, the deviations from MassDOT’s prescribed evaluation processes had a “high impact on the quality of the procurement and the perception of whether the evaluation process was consistent and fair,” Shapiro said in the letter to Eng. Eng was tapped to lead MassDOT in October after Monica Tibbits-Nutt, who led the agency during the service plaza procurement, resigned. 

“MassDOT – and each of its employees – has an obligation to uphold the highest standards in all of its procurements. The OIG found too many flaws in this procurement to say with confidence that the procurement, had it been fully executed, was based on a solid foundation,” Shapiro said, echoing comments he made during a Feb. 3 Senate Post Audit and Oversight Committee meeting as that panel pursues its own inquiry of the failed procurement.

MassDOT's board awarded a contract to redevelop and run 18 services plazas across the state to Irish retailer Applegreen in June. The contract had a potential value of nearly $1 billion, Shapiro previously said. But Applegreen backed out of contract talks in September after rival bidder Global Partners waged media, legal and public relations offensives to block the MassDOT-Applegreen deal. In October, MassDOT said it expects to rebid the contract.

Shapiro offered several recommendations for MassDOT as it eyes rebidding the contract including: address specific risks, like personal relationships with proposers; use a closed or sealed scoring environment; and present information about large procurements early and consistently to the Capital Programs Committee and full agency board during public meetings.

A MassDOT spokesperson said it received the inspector general’s report and that the agency plans to review its recommendations before the upcoming procurement and “remains committed to modernizing all service plazas to better serve residents and visitors.”

Eng and MassDOT Undersecretary Jonathan Gulliver are scheduled to testify in front of the Senate Post Audit Committee about the highway service plaza procurement process on March 24. Committee chairman Sen. Mark Montigny said previous MassDOT leadership had repeatedly declined to to appear before the committee.

"MassDOT controls some of the state's most valuable assets and this committee remains determined to turn over every stone in our investigation to ensure lessons are learned and taxpayers are protected," Montigny said."This procurement and contracting process was deeply flawed from the start as 35-year leases are ripe for abuse and expensive to taxpayers if not done right."

Montigny's office said the March 24 hearing will "examine MassDOT’s efforts to appropriately resurrect the service plaza procurement process in conjunction with formal recommendations laid out by the Inspector General."