Kaiser Settlement Sends Strong Message to Providers That Ignore Patient Needs

A California settlement compels the state’s largest health care provider to spend $150 million on behavioral health services.

• MARK KREIDLER
• OCT 16, 2023

Kaiser Permanente’s $200 million settlement with the State of California for its 
repeated failures to provide patients with adequate and timely mental health care 
was a long while coming.  The deficiencies themselves? Kaiser’s own employees 
say they’ve been hiding in plain sight.

“Years and years of banging our heads against the wall have finally paid off,” said Ilana Marcucci-Morris, a therapist at Kaiser Permanente’s Oakland Medical Center. “This has the potential to make Kaiser a leader in mental health care, rather than a serial violator of mental health care laws.”

The settlement, announced late Thursday by the state’s Department of Managed Health Care, includes a $50 million fine — the largest the department has ever levied against a health plan, Director Mary Watanabe said in a statement. Kaiser also pledged to spend $150 million over five years to build out behavioral health services that critics say have been woefully underdeveloped for years, leading to appointment wait times that violated state standards.

The settlement resulted from the department’s enforcement investigation and a nonroutine survey of Kaiser’s practices last year, which identified “several deficiencies and violations in the plan’s provision of behavioral health care services to enrollees,” the department said in a news release. Those included long delays for patients trying to schedule mental health appointments, a failure to contract enough high-level behavioral care facilities within its network, and Kaiser not making out-of-network referrals consistent with requirements under the law when in-network providers were not available, the department said.

Under the settlement, Kaiser must hire an outside consultant “to focus on corrective actions” related to access, referrals, appeals and grievances and to ensure that patients receive the mental health care they need, regardless of the type or severity of their conditions.

“Today’s actions represent a tectonic shift in terms of our accountability on the delivery of behavioral health services,” Gov. Gavin Newsom said in a statement. Newsom said the settlement aims to “provide Kaiser patients with the care they are entitled to in a timely manner.”

In a statement, Kaiser CEO Greg A. Adams said the agreement “takes full accountability for our performance during the survey period including our shortcomings, acknowledges our work to improve mental health care, and ensures that our ongoing investments not only help the members of Kaiser Permanente but also build a stronger mental health foundation in the communities we serve.”

Critics have argued that Kaiser patients haven’t received adequate care for years, despite previous enforcement actions. Kaiser paid a $4 million fine in 2013 for not providing its members proper access to mental health care. Four years later, it agreed to redress similar failures. Yet Kaiser has consistently left patients without follow-up mental health appointments for weeks, sometimes months, state officials and critics have said.

The situation reached a boiling point last fall, when more than 2,000 mental health professionals affiliated with the National Union of Healthcare Workers walked off the job, frustrated during contract negotiations by what they said was Kaiser’s refusal to address persistent staffing issues and long wait times for behavioral services. (Disclosure: NUHW is a financial supporter of Capital & Main.)

Capital & Main reported in 2021 and again last year that Kaiser workers said wait times for mental health appointments often stretched four to eight weeks or more. Jenny Butera, a marriage and family therapist in Sacramento who has since left Kaiser, said on Aug. 14 last year, “My earliest next appointment (is) mid-October — for anybody.” The American Psychological Association said in 2020 that it had never “seen such an egregious case of delayed access for follow-up appointments.”

The DMHC paid attention to such stories, and legislation that took effect last summer required providers such as Kaiser to schedule follow-up appointments for mental health care patients within 10 days of their last visit. In the wake of Thursday’s announced settlement, the department said its survey continues and could prompt a modified corrective plan.

“This settlement is a monumental victory for Kaiser Permanente patients and its mental health therapists who have waged multiple strikes over the past decade to make Kaiser fix its broken behavioral healthcare system,” said union President Sal Rosselli. “The DMHC’s report affirms everything that Kaiser therapists have said about their patients’ inability to receive timely, adequate mental health care.”

In his statement, Adams said demand for Kaiser’s mental health care services rose 33% during the COVID-19 pandemic and that 20% more people have sought care in 2023 than at the same time last year. He added that “an ongoing shortage of qualified mental health professionals,” along with clinician burnout and turnover and the 10-week strike last year, made it “very difficult to meet this growing need for care.”

The union has disputed Kaiser’s characterization, arguing that qualified therapists fled Kaiser over the years because of unreasonable workloads and short-staffing practices that predated the pandemic.

Kaiser Permanente is the largest health care provider in California, with 9.4 million residents using the system. The company was founded as a nonprofit, though its Permanente Medical Groups operate as for-profit entities. Kaiser reported a record $8.1 billion in net revenue in 2021 before showing a loss in 2022 — the only year since 2007 that the company has posted negative income.

Kaiser therapists have complained for years that Kaiser paid scant attention to the mental health care needs of its patients — a fairly common practice among health providers, industry economists say. Thursday’s settlement will change the math a bit.

“It makes me feel hopeful, knowing they have to put money into this,” Marcucci-Morris said. “We’ve been pushing for well over a decade.”

Capital & Main

The opinions expressed here are solely the author's and do not reflect the opinions or beliefs of the LA Progressive.

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Solidarity with the Palestinian right to resist

Only history can place the October 7th Palestinian military action in Israel in its proper context – an act of self-defense in response to a steadily increasing, all-encompassing Israeli assault on Palestinians in the occupied territories, in general, and the “open-air prison” of Gaza in particular. The December 12th Movement International Secretariat strongly supports the Palestinian people in the righteous exercise of their internationally-guaranteed human rights.

Why Black People Should Be Concerned

Black people cannot allow ourselves to be misguided by the U.S. government/mainstream media narrative of what is going on in the Middle East.

As with much of U.S. history, Israel’s began with a myth – “A land without a people, for a people without a land” - to justify its 1948 creation as a settler-colonial state. In many ways, the Palestinian struggle for liberation reflects our struggle in the U.S. Just as the U.S. government domestic policy has historically perpetrated and profited from Black people’s forcible oppression here, its foreign policy does the same around the world, but particularly clearly in Palestine. The U.S. was instrumental in Israel’s establishment and the forced displacement of the Palestinian who lived there. It has unqualifiedly backed it with money, weapons, intelligence, aid, propaganda and political cover ever since. Israel is the U.S.’s “eyes, ears, caretaker and bodyguard” in a critical oil-rich, non-white, non-European, geo-economic-political area.

Israel has now declared a “complete siege” on Gaza and has cut off water, electricity, fuel and food to the already impoverished area. Israel has held Gaza in a state of siege for the last 17 years since Hamas began governing. Israel said that it will “exterminate” Hamas. Hamas is the government of Gaza, not simply a military force. Hamas is an integral part of the 2.4 million people of Gaza, an area the size of Detroit (population 620,000) and one of the most densely populated areas of the world. Israel cannot separate its extermination of Hamas from the people of Gaza. Nevertheless President Biden “has Israel’s back.”

When the entire world has united to condemn Israeli atrocities, the U.S. “has its back.” Between 1972 and 2021, the United States vetoed over 53 UN resolutions against Israel.i Major international human rights organizations have accused Israel of being an apartheid regime.ii And this is not surprising as Israel was one of the few open supporters of the South African Apartheid state. Nevertheless, the U.S. “had its back.”

So we must pay close attention to what is going on in the world, even if it seem unrelated to us. Malcolm X said if we fail to do so, we’ll treat our friends as enemies and our enemies as friends. The Palestinian people are our friends.

We must:

• Demand that the CBC support the Palestinian people’s right to self-determination and self-defense
• Condemn Israeli State and colonial violence against the Palestinian people
• Demand that the U.S. end all aid to Israel
• Defend the Palestinian Movement and community in the U.S.
• Demand the Release of all (5000) Palestinian prisoners (including 1350 being held without charge or trial)

i UN Security Council Veto List; Newton, Creede, “A History of the U.S. Blocking UN Resolutions against Israel,” Al Jazeera, 5/19/2021

ii Amnesty International Report, “Israel’s Apartheid against Palestinians: a cruel system of domination and a crime against humanity,” 2/1/2022

Landry’s red wave to victory for governor also carries GOP women toward statewide office

Ultraconservative state lawmakers also avoid runoffs

Attorney General Jeff Landry’s stunning win in the governor’s race Saturday overwhelmed most other election news, but a few notable trends also emerged. Landry was not the only person with a surprising election victory this weekend. A handful of ultraconservative Louisiana Senate candidates also won their races outright and avoided November runoff elections.

State Reps. Rick Edmonds of Baton Rouge, Valarie Hodges of Denham Springs, Blake Miguez of Erath and Alan Seabaugh of Shreveport each claimed open Senate seats in the Legislature Saturday over fellow Republicans who are more moderate. Incumbent Sen. Stewart Cathey, R-Monroe, also beat a GOP challenger who was perceived to be more middle-of-the-road.

Hodges, Miguez and Seabaugh are among the most conservative members of the Louisiana House and have often challenged Republican legislative leadership on spending issues. They were among the 19 legislators who wanted the state to spend hundreds of millions of dollars less on roads and other infrastructure projects this year in order to limit government spending. 

Republicans advancing to the runoff stages of the attorney  general and treasurer races — Liz Murrill and John Fleming, respectively — were also the more conservative options in their primary races. They beat out other, more middle-of-the-road GOP candidates to head into the next stage of the election against Democrats on Nov. 18. 

The right turn in the state Senate should make life easier for Landry as governor. An ultraconservative himself, he should have fewer disputes with lawmakers overall because more of them will be aligned with his political ideology. 

Women rising

Louisiana has not had a woman in statewide office since early 2015, when former U.S. Sen. Mary Landrieu left office after losing her reelection to Bill Cassidy.

But in 2024, women will hold at least two of Louisiana’s nine elected statewide offices no matter what happens in the runoffs.

Murrill and Democrat Lindsey Cheek have made it into the runoff for attorney general, and Republican Nancy Landry and Democrat Gwen Collins-Greenup will face each other in the secretary of state’s runoff.

Murrill and Nancy Landry, as Republicans, are considered the favorites to win the races, even though Louisiana has never had two Republican women serving in statewide office at the same time.  

The last time Louisiana had two women in statewide office at all was the beginning of 2008, right before former Gov. Kathleen Blanco stepped down and Landrieu was still in Congress. 

Low voter turnout 

Voter turnout was even lower than political experts and outgoing Secretary of State Kyle Ardoin predicted it would be for this election cycle. 

Unofficial returns indicated statewide turnout of registered voters in the governor’s race was 35.8%. Ardoin’s office predicted between 42% and 46%, and political consultant and pollster John Couvillon thought it would come in between 38% and 40%. 

Registered voter turnout dropped by 10 points from the last gubernatorial primary election in 2019, when it was 45.9%. Gov. John Bel Edwards received 625,970 votes in that election, but only 47% of the overall vote. By comparison, Jeff Landry won the governor’s race Saturday with 547,828 votes and 52% of the overall vote. 

The decrease was more dramatic in Democratic and Black voter strongholds. Orleans Parish voter turnout was nearly 12 points higher, 38.7% in 2019 compared with 27% this weekend. East Baton Rouge Parish voter turnout dropped even more dramatically, by about 13 points from 48% in 2019 to 34.9%.

Low Democratic voter turnout is thought to have benefitted Landry and other conservative candidates, since those constituents are the least likely to vote for far-right Republicans.

This article originally appeared in The Louisiana Illuminator on October 15th, 2023.  

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Thomas Sankara

Thomas Sankara (1949-1987) was unique among late 20th century presidents in Africa and beyond. His political leadership was guided by a pro-people militant activism that brought together strands of radical anti-imperial Pan-Africanism, Marxist-Leninism, feminism, agro-ecological approaches to food justice, and more. Through his electrifying public speeches, his militant activism materialised as one grounded in the urgent and on-going need for concrete decolonization—a revolutionary process that Sankara understood to be protracted, necessarily experimental (in this way, ‘mad’), holistic, and centred on the intellectual liberation of everyday African people, who would be responsible for their own empowerment. For Sankara, women and the rural poor were unavoidably at the forefront of liberation projects. 

As such, Sankara, throughout his short life (he was just 37 when he was killed), sought to create the structural and cultural conditions through which Burkinabè people would assert their own projects, ambitions, and goals. Central to this was an explicit distancing from the kinds of economic and social approaches to policy which were conventional in the late Cold War—including foreign debt, socio-economic imperialism, and international development aid. 

During the revolutionary project that he led in the West African country of Burkina Faso from 1983 to 1987, the revolutionary government pursued ambitious and autonomous large- and small-scale initiatives to promote heath and decrease hunger and thirst in the country. Among these initiatives: mass child vaccination projects, tree-planting and re-forestation initiatives and the construction of a railroad to connect the country’s main cities which was built through collaboration at the grassroots by citizen-workers (international financial institutions refused to back the project). Each of these initiatives was oriented to ensuring that each Burkinabè had ‘two meals a day and access to clean drinking water’.

 

For Sankara, racial, gender, ecological, epistemic, food and economic justice were intrinsically connected. Revolutionary projects are therefore necessarily holistic: there would be no end to hunger without an end to imperialism, he said. There would be no revolution without an end to women’s oppression, he said. There would be no end to deforestation without an emancipatory educational system that re-centred values drawing from the indigenous political orientation of burkindlum* which fostered self-respect, pride, and honesty. 

 

  

The almost astonishing successes of the Burkinabè revolutionary project of the 1980s have received increased popular and scholarly attention in the last decade; this, after two decades of near-silence on and/or superficial and Eurocentric considerations of Sankara in scholarship written in English (there is a rich international scholarship on Sankara in French). 

The 15th of October 2017 marked the 30th anniversary of the assassination of Thomas Sankara and collective, popular ceremonies marking the moment were held in Burkina Faso, Canada, Italy and the US. Significant for such remembering of Sankara’s legacy is an awareness of the on-going absence of justice for his assassination alongside twelve of his collaborators. Sankara’s life and legacies remain critical for activists and young people organizing for justice today.

 

*Burkindlum is a Burkinabè political and ethical orientation that emphasises sacrifice, honesty and integrity in action. See Zakaria Soré (2018) “Balai Citoyen: A New Praxis of Citizen Fight with Sankarist Inspirations” in ‘A Certain Amount of Madness’: The Life, Politics & Legacy of Thomas Sankara, Murrey, Amber (ed.). London: Pluto Press.

 

 

Essential Reading (in English):

Sankara, Thomas (2007) Thomas Sankara Speaks. Pathfinder Press.
Harsch, Ernest (2014) Thomas Sankara: An African Revolutionary. Ohio University Press.
Murrey, Amber, ed. (2018) ‘A Certain Amount of Madness’ The Life, Politics, and Legacy of Thomas Sankara. London: Pluto Press.
Shuffield, Robin (2006) Thomas Sankara: The Upright Man. Documentary Film, 52 mins.

 

Further Reading (in English):
Battistoli, D.S. (2017) What Would A Sympathetic Critique of Thomas Sankara Look Like? Africa Is A Country.

BBC World Service, The Forum, “Sankara: An African Revolutionary,” December 2017.

Biney, Ama (2013) Revisiting Thomas Sankara, 26 Years Later. Pambazuka News. 

Murrey, A (2012) The Revolution and the Emancipation of Women: A Reflection on Sankara’s Speech, 25 Years Later. Pambazuka News, Issue 590.

Murrey, A (2015) A Political Biography of Thomas Sankara. The Palgrave Encyclopedia of Imperialism and Anti-Imperialism. Maty S and Ness I (eds.) London and New York: Palgrave Macmillan.

Murrey, A (2016) ‘Our Stomachs Will Make Themselves Heard’ What Sankara Can Teach Us About Food Justice Today. African Arguments. 

Murrey, A (2017) Remembering Thomas Sankara on the 30th Anniversary of His Assassination. Pambazuka News. 

Ray, Corina (2008) Who Really Killed Thomas Sankara? Pambazuka News. 

Reza, Alexandra (2016) New Broom in Burkina Faso? New Left Review 101.

 

Questions:

1. African feminist Patricia McFadden (2018) has argued that Sankara’s insistence in the importance of women’s emancipation in Africa was the most radical and dangerous element of Sankara’s revolutionary vision. Why might gender justice have been such a radical component of the revolutionary project?

2. Sankara’s memory burns strong in Africa today, where the project for decolonization remains unfinished. What lessons might his revolutionary leadership, militant presidency, and/or holistic approach to emancipation hold for other places in the world?

3. What does the slighting of the Burkinabè revolutionary project of 1983-87 and Sankara’s leadership in Anglophone scholarship reveal about the geopolitics of knowledge, in particular what does it reveal about the study of Africa more broadly?

Submitted by Amber Murrey. For questions, comments or other correspondence about Sankara, please contact: amber.murrey-ndewa@aucegypt.edu

Reprinted with permission from Global Social Theory.

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While Israeli Media Examine Government Failure, US Papers Push ‘National Unity’

ARI PAUL

As the world watches the ongoing horror in southern Israel and in the Gaza Strip, media grapple not only with the immediate violence, but to understand why this happened and how it can stop. This is truly no other Middle East skirmish anymore. Likely the deadliest offensive against Israel on its soil, and perhaps the most audacious operation by Palestinian militants, it’s been compared both to 9/11 and to the bloody 1973 war between Israel and a coalition of Arab nations.

How could Israel—so famous for its military might and advanced intelligence capabilities—have missed the warnings of such an attack? The coordinated nature of the rocket attacks and assaults on nearby towns make clear that this was a huge operation that took time and planning; paragliding attacks require practice runs that are not easy to hide (L’Orient Today, 10/9/23), for instance. Already, Israeli media have begun looking closely at the Israeli government’s actions to understand how and why this happened—in sharp contrast to US broadsheet opinion, which has largely rallied unquestioningly behind Israeli “national unity.”

Blaming Netanyahu

In the wake of the Hamas attack, criticism of the Israeli government was widespread in the country’s media (Times of Israel, 10/8/23).

The Times of Israel (10/8/23) noted that Netanyahu was quoted telling Likud Party members in 2018 about his stance on Gaza, summarizing his quote saying “those who oppose a Palestinian state should support the transfer of funds to Gaza”—meaning to Gaza’s Hamas-led government—as doing so maintains the “separation between the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank and Hamas in Gaza,” thus dividing and conquering the Palestinians once and for all.

Gaza is sealed off, contained and highly surveilled (Middle East Institute, 4/27/22); it’s hard to believe no one in the Israeli government didn’t know something was being planned.  The above ToI report quoted Assaf Pozilov, a reporter for the Israeli public broadcasting outlet Kan, saying before the attack, “The Islamic Jihad organization has started a noisy exercise very close to the border, in which they practiced launching missiles, breaking into Israel and kidnapping soldiers.”

An Israeli military veteran in the New York Post (10/9/23), hardly considered a pro-Palestine publication, blamed Israel for ignoring warnings from Egyptian intelligence about “something big.”

An editorial at Ha’aretz (10/8/23) put the blame squarely on Netanyahu, saying “he is the ultimate arbiter of Israeli foreign and security affairs.” It also pointed the finger at his right-wing policies on settlement expansion and allies with far-right extremist parties. “As expected, signs of an outbreak of hostilities began in the West Bank, where Palestinians started feeling the heavier hand of the Israeli occupier,” the editorial said, noting that “Hamas exploited the opportunity in order to launch its surprise attack.”

At the Jewish Telegraphic Agency (10/7/23), David Halperin, chief executive officer of the Israel Policy Forum, wrote that for the last year, “my colleagues and I…have joined with others in expressing concern about the nature of Israel’s far-right government.” The article—which questioned why Netanyahu’s government, famously hard-nosed on security, failed to protect the people—was reprinted in the Jerusalem Post (10/7/23).

Alon Pinkas (Ha’aretz, 10/9/23) wrote more directly: “Netanyahu should be removed as prime minister immediately—not ‘after the war,’ not after a plea bargain in his corruption trial, not after an election. Now.”

‘Risks of disunity’

Unity, not accountability, was the key theme in US media (New York Times, 10/9/23).

But top US editorial boards are elsewhere, failing to ask questions about intelligence failures and Netanyahu’s hand on the wheel. Instead, they urged Israelis to put aside the concerns they’ve had about democracy, which brought throngs of liberal and left-wing Israelis into the streets to denounce the Netanyahu government’s neutering of an independent judiciary—a decision that has been likened to the “sham democracy” of Hungary (Foreign Policy, 8/3/23). This summer, military reservists joined the protests, causing alarm about the country’s military readiness (AP, 7/19/23).

A Wall Street Journal editorial (10/7/23) used the Hamas offensive to downplay Netanyahu’s judicial power grab, saying, “The internal Israeli debates over its Supreme Court look trivial next to the threat to Israel’s existence.”

The Journal also discounted any criticism of the ongoing Israeli blockade of Gaza, saying, “Israel has been allowing 17,000 Gazans to work in Israel each day and would like to allow more.” The editorial said “the assault also underscores the continuing malevolence of Iran,” because its government “cheered on the attacks,” “provided the rockets and weapons for Hamas,” and “may have encouraged the timing as well.”

A Washington Post editorial (10/7/23) did blame the right-wing government for initiating the internal political crisis, but hoped that the political factions would soon come together. “Early signs are that Israel’s leading politicians are putting aside their differences with Mr. Netanyahu to meet the emergency,” it said. Another Post editorial (10/9/23) suggested that the US could take a lesson from Israel on the “risks of disunity,” criticizing Netanyahu’s judicial overhaul for setting off a “distracting backlash.”

An editorial at Bloomberg (10/8/23) admitted that Netanyahu’s judicial reform efforts “have needlessly riven Israeli society” and that his aggressive military policies in the Occupied Territories worsened things for Israelis and Palestinians alike. Yet the news service waved that all away, saying, “But all that’s for another time.” It also said the “assault deserves only one response from the world: outrage, and unwavering support for Israel’s right to defend itself.”

The New York Times editorial board (10/9/23) said that though Israelis were right to march against Netanyahu’s judicial restrictions, the Hamas attack changed the terrain, because “Israel’s military strength depends on its national unity, and Israelis have now come together to defend themselves.”

Of course, Israel, while mobilizing for war, has moved toward forming a unity government (Reuters, 10/10/23).

‘Your self-made weakness’

The other problem, according to Shimrit Meir (New York Times, 10/8/23), is that “Israelis acted as if we could afford the luxury of a vicious internal fight.”

Worse, the Times gave column space (10/8/23) to Shimrit Meir, a former advisor to far-right Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett, to cite Israel’s political division as military weakness, urging the country to close ranks.

Israel was vulnerable to an attack because years of dissolving Knessets and new elections left the country divided, Meir said, adding that Israel had “forgotten its second role in the world, as a place that embodies the idea of Jewish solidarity,” and that the people “instead found themselves engaged in an all-out war—not against terrorists but against themselves.”

The idea that the Israeli populace–which has long included right-wing militarists, religious fanatics of various Jewish sects, left-wing anti-occupation activists and techy neoliberals—has always been one big family in political consensus without fierce debate is laughable. But for Meir, the dissension in recent years is a dangerous aberration:

As a nation, Israelis acted as if we could afford the luxury of a vicious internal fight, the kind in which your political rival becomes your enemy. We let animosity, demagogy and the poisonous discourse of social media take over our society, rip apart the only Jewish army in the world. This is our tragedy. And it carries a lesson for other polarized democracies: There is someone out there waiting to gain from your self-made weakness. This someone is your enemy.

She said she hoped that Israel returned “to its senses, ending the political crisis and forming a unity government.”

In other words, not only is Knesset opposition to Netanyahu’s internal policies now viewed as some kind of softness on the Hamas attack, but it was the nerve of the people to organize to protect their institutions that opened up the nation to the latest offensive.

No longer time for debate

The Washington Post (10/9/23) published an exceptional op-ed that pointed to the occupation as the root of violence.

The Washington Post, to its credit, ran an op-ed (10/9/23) from a Palestinian journalist that didn’t necessarily put the blame squarely on Netanyahu, but called on the US to support Palestinian statehood. But Post columnist David Ignatius (10/8/23) jumped in on the idea that the quarrel over the Supreme Court contributed to Hamas’ offensive. “Did that political chaos contribute to the Gaza attacks? I don’t know,” he said, adding that the “domestic feuds of the past few months might have led Hamas and its backers in Tehran to believe that Israel was internally weak and, perhaps, vulnerable.”

Meanwhile, the Wall Street Journal ran fiercely jingoistic pieces from well-known American neoconservatives like Douglas Feith (10/9/23) and Daniel Pipes (10/8/23), while Mitch McConnell (10/9/23), the Republican Senate minority leader, called for more US support for Israel’s war effort. And far from questioning the Israeli government’s preparedness, law professor Eugene Kontorovich (10/8/23) said the US and others “must not only refrain from limiting Israel’s operation in Gaza but resolve to oust the genocidal regime in Tehran.”

While Israelis, including those in the media class, ponder if their country is run by inept and corrupt leadership, much of the US media skip all this and insinuate that now is no longer the time for debate, but a time to brush aside uncomfortable conversations in the face of war.

Originally published on FAIR.org, October 13th, 2023. Reprinted with permission.     

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State contracting with 20 firms for $415M law enforcement training project

BY: SAM STOCKARD - OCTOBER 12, 2023 

Tennessee is hiring nearly 20 contractors to build a massive $415 million law enforcement training center on state property in Cockrill Bend.

State officials broke ground recently at the 600-acre site, located near Riverbend Maximum Security Institution where Death Row inmates are housed in north Nashville, joined by law enforcement leaders from across the state. 

Department of Correction and Department of Safety and Homeland Security offices will be housed there, along with training facilities for state troopers and officers, including dorms, a driving track and K-9 kennels.

“This site represents one of the best examples of inter-agency cooperation Tennessee has ever seen,” Brandon Gibson, chief operating officer for Gov. Bill Lee, said at a recent ceremony. “It represents the future of law enforcement training in Tennessee, and this site represents the governor’s and the General Assembly’s dedication to law enforcement in this state.”

Lt. Gov. Randy McNally and House Speaker Cameron Sexton, both members of the State Building Commission, supported the project, and Gov. Bill Lee credited their backing with helping fund it. Sexton noted it provides a “long-term vision” for the future of law enforcement training.

Lee said he started touring law enforcement training facilities statewide to check on conditions after he took office nearly five years ago.

“I remember walking through facilities where tiles were missing and 40-year-old bathrooms and bunk rooms that I wouldn’t want to stay in, and I got a vision that day, almost four and a half years ago that we needed to do something different,” Lee said.

Though the governor appeared to take responsibility for birthing the project, the Department of General Services started work on the law enforcement training center as early as 2017, if not earlier, before Lee won his first election.

I’m not a big supporter of it because of the nature of it, but I do support our police officers in training because I believe this is going to be a combination with the FBI.

– Rep. Vincent Dixie, D-Nashville

Only about five state lawmakers turned out for the groundbreaking ceremony two weeks ago, none of them representing Davidson County.

Democratic state Rep. Vincent Dixie, whose district contains the property, said he received an email blast inviting lawmakers shortly after the governor’s special session on public safety ended but that it wasn’t the normal protocol and he didn’t see it and, thus, didn’t attend. The governor’s office usually calls lawmakers to invite them to a special event in their district, he noted.

Dixie has mixed emotions about the project. He wants to avoid a “Cops City” such as the center built in Atlanta, and he believes officers should go through “cultural sensitivity” as well as technical training.

“I’m not a big supporter of it because of the nature of it, but I do support our police officers in training because I believe this is going to be a combination with the FBI,” Dixie said.

Besides the law enforcement training center, the Lee Administration put $150 million into a violent crime prevention fund, $60 million toward state trooper bonuses and funding to hire 200 more highway patrolmen.

A portion of the property lies within the floodplain of the Cumberland River, but the state doesn’t plan to construct any major buildings in those areas, and other steps are being taken to minimize the impact of a potential flood, according to Parks.

Contractors lined up

The state opted to go with multiple construction managers based on efficiency and risk management. It also hired several design firms because of the size of the job and specialized components such as housing, dining, infrastructure, and various simulated training areas that required certain knowledge.

Breaking the project into “smaller sub-projects” allows the state to evaluate designers and construction managers for each section, said Michelle Sandes Parks, a spokeswoman for the Department of General Services.

The method also allows the state to bring in the contractor earlier to help with design elements such as “constructability,” obtaining materials, putting together estimates and scheduling to minimize risks on timing and costs, she said.

Environmental consulting: $750,000

Environmental remediation: $1.5 million

Survey services: $475,000

Design and contingency: $19.2 million

Consultant services: $2.5 million

Commissioning: $1.5 million

Preconstruction: $1.08

State’s equipment: $9

State furniture fixtures: $17.25

Moving services: $1.02

Technology/phone: $8.3 million

Audio/video equipment: $3.37 million

Security: $4.65 million

Administration: $41.9

“In the end, there is no guarantee that a single construction manager or even the use of a different delivery method would cost the state less,” Parks said in a statement.

Kline Swinney Associates is slated to do the master planning and coordination for the entire project while EnSafe Environmental is conducting environmental studies and testing along with Smith Seckman Reid (SSRCx), which is involved in commissioning and testing.

The state is using what is called a construction manager method for the project, a situation in which the state negotiates a cost with a contractor, which then works with the designer to complete the job, taking on a bit more risk. Because of the project’s magnitude, construction managers are being used on every facet.

The construction cost is $287.8 million, but the total cost includes several other factors. (See box at right.) 

The state put $23 million in the fiscal 2021-22 budget and $355.6 million in the fiscal 2022-23 budget for the project. Another $5 million is coming out of Department of General Services operating funds and $31.5 million is coming out of a reserve fund.

The Department of General Services was unable to provide a breakdown for the amount it will be paying each contractor.

• AECOM and Barge Civil Associates will handle design for infrastructure and site work, and Environmental Abatement Inc. is doing demolition work. No construction manager has been hired for that part of the work.
• Kline Swinney Associates will design a firing range complex, and Reeves + Young was approved for construction management. The company was involved in work at the police training facility in Atlanta called Cop City, which has been under protest by groups opposed to building a large law enforcement training complex in a wooded area there.
• TMPartners is designing the training academy building, and Turner Construction is the construction management contractor for that part of the project.
• Earl Swensson Associates is designing the housing, dining and kennel building, and Hoar Construction is the construction management contractor for that part of the project.
• The Pickering Firm is doing design work for a track on which to train emergency vehicle operators. The construction management contractor hasn’t been hired.
• Anecdote Architectural Experiences will design the headquarters building, and Messer Construction will be the construction manager. 

Related Articles

61 “Stop Cop City” activists hit with racketeering charges, People's Dispatch

Cop City Protesters Arrested After Chaining Themselves to Construction Equipment, Common Dreams

‘People Have Been Protesting Against Cop City Since We Found Out About It’, FAIR 

Vigils For Tortuguita: Land Defenders Erupt In Solidarity, Progressive Hub

Originally published on October 12th, 2023, in Tennessee Lookout

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