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Alabama regulatory board requests emergency contract after missing deadline

MONTGOMERY, Ala. – The Alabama Security Regulatory Board approved an emergency contract request Tuesday after Smith Warren Management, which had long managed the board’s administrative services, missed a key deadline to submit a request for its contract with the board to be renewed.

One of the dozens of state occupational licensing boards that regulates and licenses professions, the Security Regulatory Board regulates and licenses security guards and companies in the state, and has been managed by Smith Warren Management for years. 

The company’s most recent contract in 2023 saw Smith Warren Management paid more than $500,000 for administrative services in fiscal year 2024.

At the board’s meeting, held at the Smith Warren Management office in Montgomery, Neva Conway, the board’s legal counsel, said that the deadline had been missed due to a misinterpretation of state law, and thus, was rejected by the legislative Contract Review Committee, which vets state contracts.

Lawmakers in the last year have questioned the third-party management, allowed by state law, of many of the state’s licensure boards that can fine and charge fees to thousands of licensees.

“I tried every argument I could think of with trying to get the Contract Review (Committee) to take the contract, and it was ‘nope, this is our procedure,’ fell on flat ears,” Conway said.

The board’s contract with Smith Warren Management expired on Sept. 30. 

The board voted to approve a request for an emergency contract that would expire on Jan. 31 and would be required to be placed for bid through the request for proposal process.

As an emergency contract request, however, its approval would circumvent the Contract Review Committee, and instead, be decided at the discretion of Alabama Chief Procurement Officer Christine Cook and Gov. Kay Ivey.

However, Sen. Chris Elliott, R-Josephine, a member of the Contract Review Committee, cast doubt on the likelihood of the board’s request getting approved.

“I doubt the chief procurement officer is going to approve this,” Elliott told Alabama Daily News Tuesday. “I think that the chief procurement officer is wary of continuing to go through this process with them, it’s a recurring, constant issue.”

Sen. Chris Elliott.

Elliott has long been a critic of the way the state’s regulatory boards have been managed, particularly under Warren Smith Management, led by Keith Warren and Kevin Smith.

“My beef so far has not been with the boards themselves but with the administrative services that are being provided to these boards; the cost of those services, and the crummy way they’re being run from an administrative standpoint,” he said.

If approved, the Security Regulatory Board’s request will see the contract placed to bid through about a month-long RFP process, with Warren previously telling ADN that he intends to bid on it.

If it’s not approved, it could cause some interruptions of services the board provides, with Conway saying “there would be no activity going on at the board” were that to happen.

Escambia County Sheriff Heath Jackson, a member of the board, was optimistic that lawmakers would find a way for the board to avoid disruptions to license issuing and renewals given the scope of security across the state.

“I don’t see the state stopping the movement of people out trying to work for a living,” Jackson said.

“I don’t mind them disrupting my daily activities – the state, that is – I just don’t want us disrupting people that’s got to feed their families for a living. I think that’s the worst thing that can happen.”

Elliott said that if the contract is not approved, it would be another indication of a need for change in how the state’s regulatory boards are managed.

“It’s messy and it’s sloppy, and the people of the state of Alabama and the businesses that are regulated by these boards deserve better.”

The most recent audit report on the Security Regulatory Board found that from Oct. 1, 2020 through Sept. 30, 2023, the board’s receipts totaled just under $2 million – generated from license fees and fines – and its disbursements, just over $2 million, resulting in a slight net decrease in cash balance over the three-year period.

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