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Last Friday, on Fox 5’s Georgia Gang, Governor Brian Kemp was dubbed “Loser of the Week” after a state audit found his administration “sidestepped the law” in rushing to approve a billion-dollar contract to distribute cash assistance cards to 3 million Georgians before the 2022 election.

While state law requires that all contracts over $100,000 be publicly posted on the Georgia Procurement Registry for any vendor to bid, this $1.1 billion proposal was not. The audit found that the Georgia Department of Human Services and Governor Kemp’s Office of Planning and Budget solicited proposals from four hand-picked vendors and received bids from three of the four.

Within a week, the contract was awarded to gift card company Rellevate. Less than three weeks later, the first cash assistance cards were sent to Georgians — on the exact same day that the first round of absentee ballots were sent out in the 2022 general election. 

State contracts of this size and complexity go through a four- to six-month vendor selection process, with some contracts taking up to a year to approve. Had DHS and the governor’s office followed that timeline in this case, the cash cards would have gone out in early 2023 at the earliest, well after the election was over. 

In naming Governor Brian Kemp the “Loser of the Week” for rushing a state contract to win an election, one Georgia Gang guest expressed the hope that “there’ll be a lot more looking into that.” We can only hope.