HUD Repeatedly Dismissed Staff Concerns About Contracts

The company got into a payment dispute with HUD that led to the end of Ed Girovasi's 33-year contracting career.

Girovasi was tasked with reviewing an NHG claim for $8 million in payments. He concluded in December 2005 that the firm had exaggerated its claim and instead owed HUD $250,000, records show. He was reassigned to a policy job weeks later, although agency spokesman Brown said Girovasi took the job voluntarily.

The dispute simmered for another six months. Girovasi's successor reached the same conclusion, and HUD rejected the company's claim.

Girovasi, who retired a year after his transfer, declined to comment. He told investigators in 2006 that "the high-level interest in NHG was peculiar and caused a delay in issuing a final decision on the claim."

This year, after a series of complaints, NHG has no HUD contracts. In February, company principal Wynee Joyner was charged with falsifying claims for HUD reimbursement.

Brown said the firm's contracts were properly awarded, but he added that "not all contractors perform as well as expected."

NHG, which has sued HUD for unpaid claims, did not return calls seeking comment. Joyner's attorney declined to comment.

The contracting success of Drayton, Drayton & Lamar (DDL) fit a similar pattern. Since 2003, it has won $35 million in information-management contracts. In the previous years, it had received just under $1 million in HUD work.

When the inspector general investigated Jackson in 2006, an unidentified HUD employee reported concerns that "DDL continues to get contracts despite its poor performance," according to a report.

The employee alleged that the company had a patron inside HUD's contracting office. DDL President Robert Drayton had socialized with Frank Davis, a close Jackson ally who is now second in command at the office of housing. Davis headed HUD's contract management review board.

Brown said the review board does not make final contract decisions. A review of a sample of DDL's contracts, he said, "did not find any evidence of anything improper."

Drayton said in an interview that his company wins contracts because of its performance.

"I don't think, maybe I'm wrong, that anybody at HUD can just give you a contract," he said. "I don't see how knowing him has been some special help to me."

Research editor Alice Crites and staff researcher Julie Tate contributed to this report.