Citrus County Sheriff Mike Prendergast is calling on U.S. Sen. Rick Scott to look into a deal the Biden administration recently cut to move U.S. troops and their families around the world.
The sheriff, a Republican, recently wrote to Scott with concerns about the Department of Defense inking a contract with HomeSafe Alliance.
In November, the company announced in a press release that the U.S. Transportation Command, which oversees such relocations, had awarded it a contract worth up to $20 billion to be “the exclusive household goods move management service provider for the U.S. Armed Forces, Department of Defense civilians and their families.”
HomeSafe Alliance pledged in return to “modernize and infuse technology to improve the domestic and international relocation experience for all military personnel and their families.”
Prendergast has doubts, according to the website Florida Politics.
The sheriff is a 31-year U.S. Army veteran who has been shuttled around the globe 23 times in his career.
In such situations, Florida Politics reported, the U.S. military now uses more than 900 moving companies in processing more than 300,000 moves annually.
According to the Military Times, HomeSafe Alliance doesn’t actually move anything. Its skill set is manning the technology to coordinate military personnel moves among some 2,000 subcontractors. Company executives say only the highest quality movers will get the nod from HomeSafe Alliance.
But as Florida Politics noted, “While the DOD [Department of Defense] enjoys widespread agreement on the decision to name a single moving company, many others have raised concerns about HomeSafe Alliance’s ability to do the job.”
Prendergast is among them.
“I urge you to look into this contracting process and make sure we avoid a serious misstep, invest what’s necessary to do this right, and insist on a team with the assets, experience, and integrity to make military moves profoundly better for our service men and women and their families,” Prendergast wrote to Scott, a Florida Republican who sits on the Senate Armed Services Committee.
The sheriff called HomeSafe Alliance “unproven.”
“In the midst of this historically challenging environment, a team that will successfully transform PCS [Permanent Change of Station] moves must be able to overcome complex supply chain impacts, have a track record of moving goods successfully around the world, and have the resources to attract people power by getting money to the street,” Prendergast wrote. “That requires three things: assets, experience, and integrity.”
That refers to HomeSafe Alliance’s parent companies. As Florida Politics reported, the firm is owned by KBR and Tier One.
Tier One has been the subject of numerous complaints to the Better Business Bureau, which has not accredited the company. Meanwhile, KBR was once the defendant in a human trafficking lawsuit, which was dismissed by an appellate court in 2014.
Prendergast noted he is going to bat for the veterans in Citrus County as well as her daughter and her husband, both of whom are in the military.
“It appears that the award [to HomeSafe Alliance] may have been based on low price, which is unfortunate, because transformation generally requires significant investment, especially now,” he wrote to Scott. “We all know what you get by going with a low bidder.”
Scott’s staff told Florida Politics the senator is still reviewing the letter. In the meantime, HomeSafe Alliance’s contract is being challenged by companies who lost out on the deal.
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Your attempt at making this political is ridiculous. The contract was put to bid during the Trump administration. However, Mr. Prendergast is absolutely correct in objecting to the awarding to HomeSafe. As someone with 39 years of experience in the military freight forwarding industry, I can tell you no matter what company is awarded to contract, it is extremely unlikely they will be able to service the shipments any better than the existing network of agents. Something needs to change, but this is the wrong way to do it.