Dallas Mayor Eric Johnson calls for probe into coronavirus testing contract after News investigation

This is a developing story and will be updated.

Dallas Mayor Eric Johnson on Wednesday asked the city’s auditor to investigate how a Washington-based company won a $14 million contract to run a coronavirus testing site through an emergency bidding process. The call comes after a Dallas Morning News report that highlighted potential red flags in the company’s track record.

The city and county of Dallas — using federal money part of Congress’ relief package — are splitting the cost of the contract with Honu Management Group to run one of the region’s largest public testing sites. The city and county launched the testing site at the University of Dallas in July after the federal government ended its support for testing. The testing site run by Honu has since moved to Dallas College Eastfield Campus.

“These concerns are worth a closer look. The size of the City’s contract is significant, and the stakes are extraordinarily high for testing as we work to slow the spread of a deadly virus in Dallas,” the mayor said in his memo. “We must feel confident in our decisions as we dedicate millions in taxpayer dollars to our pandemic response efforts.”

Honu did not immediately reply to a request for comment on Wednesday.

The mayor’s request also comes one day after Dallas County commissioners said they will withhold paying Honu their portion of the contract until after officials determine whether the company is fulfilling its obligations of providing test results within 72 hours of a lab receiving the specimen. County commissioners are expected to take up the contract at their Aug. 18 meeting.

Dallas County Commissioner Theresa Daniel, who represents eastern Dallas County, said her staff was tested at the University of Dallas site on July 28 and as of Tuesday night had not yet received their results.

Since Honu started running the University of Dallas site, over 90% of test results have been turned around within 3 days, data provided by the county shows. Dallas County health officials are looking into why 7% of people tested positive at the site in July, compared to 17% at testing locations run by Parkland Hospital.

In a previous interview with The News, both Honu CEO Devin Thornton and city officials said the company was fulfilling the terms of the contract.

Officials previously said Honu was the only company it approached as part of its emergency bidding process that met all the criteria needed to fulfill the city’s needs for a self-contained testing site similar to what the federal government had set up earlier in the pandemic.

However, the city has begun taking new bids for testing and laboratories to run its public testing site. The application window ends Aug. 17.

Testing for the virus has been a nationwide problem.

Dr. Diana Cervantes, an epidemiologist at The University of North Texas Health Science Center in Fort Worth said public officials in a rush to make testing more available created unintended consequences — including faulty tests and a bottleneck of samples causing delays in getting people results.

Cervantes said it’s important for public officials to remember as they seek out new solutions to remember: “Not all labs and testing are made equal.”

“You have to have specialized people to do the test, special equipment and special reagents,” she said.

Cervantes said the medical and public health community have never needed test results so quickly as they do now with the fast-moving coronavirus. And she hopes that moving forward public officials seek out tests that produce results in minutes rather than days, even if they aren’t as accurate as the nose swab test currently common at the public testing sites. That will take a “big switch” in the public health community to prioritize speed over quality.

“You can have a really good test that is able to quickly identify people who are contagious,” she said.

Update: This article has been updated to clarify the money used to pay for the testing site is federal dollars, part of Congress’ coronavirus relief package.