A state watchdog group continues its probe into the Connecticut Port Authority and awaits receipt of information about the process that led to a new port operator at State Pier in New London.

The State Contracting Standards and Review Board met Friday and said it has yet to see an unredacted copy of the responses to a request for proposals, or RFP, issued in 2018 for a new terminal operator at State Pier in New London. The port authority said it is in the process of reviewing that request and initially argued the information was confidential.

The RFP responses are among a host of documents being reviewed by a subcommittee of the board as it takes a closer look at the quasi-public agency’s contracts and procurement process.

State Contracting Board member Lauren Gauthier, who is leading the probe, said members of the board met on Nov. 3 with port authority board Chairman David Kooris and Executive Director John Henshaw.

The meeting was fruitful and Kooris and Henshaw were cooperative, she said, but it also led to further questions.

The board still is gathering information on the $523,000 “success fee” awarded by the port authority as part of its $700,000 payment to Seabury Maritime. The payment was part of a negotiated settlement reached between Seabury and the port authority in 2020.

The contract has raised questions not only because a managing director at Seabury was a former port authority board member, but because the authority’s own policies apparently prohibit a success fee.

"The finder's fee is explicitly prohibited in their procedures," Gauthier said.

In 2018, Seabury Maritime was hired by the port authority to perform strategic advisory services and help find a new terminal operator for State Pier in New London. The authority ultimately contracted with Gateway Terminal. 

State Attorney General William Tong in February announced an investigation into the port authority based on a whistleblower complaint, lodged in 2019, about a possible violation of the state code of ethics.

Gauthier said the port authority, based on her conversations with its board members, believes it is standard industry practice to have some type of a success fee in these types of contracts. “They believe that there would not have been any type of cost savings by prohibiting the success fees in the final agreement in the amendment to the RFP,” she added.

There are also explicit prohibitions on taking fewer than three bidders on requests for proposals but no remedy when the instances occur, she said, as was the case in this RFP. The authority received only two bids for strategic advisory services.

Gauthier said she brought up to the port authority a need for a procurement professional and learned that Henshaw identified himself as the procurement authority for the authority, something she and other board members are uncomfortable with.

Board member Albert Ilg voiced his frustration with the port authority Friday after Gauthier's report on her meeting with the authority officials.

“In your discussions with them, did they seem to understand that $500,000 success fee, how that looks to the public, especially when most people have never heard of it?” Ilg said. “It just seems amateur. That’s the best that I could call it. I don’t think its satisfactory to continue the way they are. I think they’ve lost the trust of the public.”

Contracting Standards Board member Bruce Buff said the board is charged with reviewing and certifying the port authority's procurement process. But, “Unfortunately there were none. The CPA refers to their operating procedures as their process but it is inadequate. This really isn’t a process. It’s not one we can audit, evaluate and certify, he said.

He encouraged discussion between the port authority and the state Office of Policy and Management about a formalized process in the absence of a centralized state procurement organization.

Board Chairman Larry Fox said he expected further conversations with the port authority, the Office of Policy and Management and state Department of Administrative Services “to understand what their relationship is and how involved they are on a go-forward basis with the procurement procedures for the port authority.”

“We’re still digging in to try to understand this success fee and finders fee and all of that," Fox said. "Our hope is we’re going to get to some things before the end of the calendar year.”

g.smith@theday.com