Jim Rosica
A bid protest filed over a Florida Lottery advertising contract worth $125 million has been “dismissed,” a spokeswoman said Monday.
Lottery communications director Connie Barnes, in response to an inquiry from FloridaPolitics.com, said the “dispute has been dismissed.”
She did not offer further details, including when and why. Barnes did not immediately respond to a request for more information.
“The Lottery is looking forward to finalizing the contract and moving forward with PP+K,” she said, referring to the winning bidder, a Tampa-based advertising agency.
St. John & Partners, a Jacksonville-based advertising and PR firm, filed the protest over the five-year services contract in June.
St. John’s attorney, Robert Hosay of the Foley & Lardner law firm in Tallahassee, was not available Monday, an assistant said. He’s an expert in bid protests and former interim secretary of the Florida Department of Management Services under Gov. Jeb Bush.
The two firms, however, issued a joint press release Monday afternoon.
“Recently, representatives from PP+K and St. John & Partners reached an amicable agreement to end the administrative protest over the Florida Lottery’s decision to enter an advertising and marketing services contract with PP+K,” it said.
“In order to avoid the potential expense and uncertainty of resolving the protest through legal or administrative proceedings, the parties came to an agreement to compromise and settle all claims that were raised,” the statement added. “The administrative protest has been voluntarily dismissed.
“In keeping with the spirit of the amicable resolution, there will be no further comment from either party at this time.”
Among the allegations in the St. John protest was that PP&K consultant David Bishop, a former deputy secretary of the Lottery, failed to observe the state’s two-year ban on former agency officials lobbying their ex-employers.
It also complained Florida Lottery officials broke the state’s Sunshine Law by not holding a public meeting to discuss “the relative merits of the vendors and arrive at a best value determination and award recommendation,” according to the protest.
The idea behind the contract, first put out last June, was to “provide lottery players with the knowledge to purchase its products in a responsible manner, enhance sales (and) attract new and lapsed players,” according to the protest.
Lottery proceeds benefit the state’s Educational Enhancement Trust Fund (EETF), which helps pay for public education.
A January report by the Legislature’s watchdog arm said Lottery transfers to the EETF “increased slightly in fiscal year 2014-15 to $1.496 billion, or $1 million more than the prior year,” according to a summary.
The Office of Program Policy Analysis and Government Accountability, or OPPAGA, recommended the Lottery should “continue to regularly assess the effectiveness of its advertising,” among other things.
A previous story on the bid protest is here.
