Orange County supervisors direct staff to preserve elder services after RFP dispute

The Orange County Board of Supervisors on May 21 directed county staff to extend the master contract for early intervention services for older adults and return to the board with proposed allocations that preserve existing provider shares.

The board's move followed hours of public testimony from older adults and community organizations and a sustained exchange between MECA (the Multi Ethnic Collaborative of Community Agencies), the Health Care Agency (HCA), and the Council on Aging Southern California over a recently reissued request for proposals. Multiple speakers warned that consolidating the contract with a single lead provider risked interrupting culturally specific services for Cambodian, Vietnamese, Samoan and other communities.

"So the contract is over. We don't have a contract," Supervisor Katrina Foley said during the discussion, underscoring the urgency to avoid a service gap while procurement issues were resolved.

MECA's communications and development manager, Matt Haynes, told the board that MECA and its member organizations have provided services for more than a decade and that shifting administration "cold turkey" would leave monolingual and other vulnerable older adults without culturally competent access. "MECA has been providing ISOAA services to diverse communities for over 10 years," Haynes said, urging the board to reconsider the single-provider approach.

Lisa Wright Jenkins, CEO of Council on Aging Southern California, who was the recommended awardee, described her organization's experience managing the contract and said the council has the staff and infrastructure to administer the services countywide. "I'm Lisa Wright Jenkins. I'm the CEO of the Council on Aging Southern California, and we have enjoyed over 50 of serving the older adult community," she told the board, and said Council on Aging was willing to subcontract to culturally specific providers, including the Cambodian Family.

HCA procurement staff told supervisors they reissued the solicitation after a protest and used a five-member panel for scoring; one panelist's higher scoring in a psychiatry-related section created a narrow differential in the final ranking. Board members repeatedly asked for transparency about scoring and subcontractor commitments.

To address those concerns, the board voted to extend the master contract and directed HCA to return at a future meeting with negotiated allocations that maintain the existing proportional shares where feasible and minimize the risk of service interruptions. The motion was made and seconded on the record and the board announced there were no oppositions or abstentions.

Next steps: staff will return with the extension paperwork and proposed funding splits and subcontractor commitments for board review and a public vote. The board emphasized that any final contract actions should be taken in open session so the public can see the allocations and terms specified.

The records do not show a roll-call vote tally in the transcript; the board stated the direction was carried with no opposition or abstentions.