Clark County approved wife of key public works official for future projects

Clark County approved the wife of a key public works official as a primary contractor on certain public works projects, raising more questions about the handling of a potential conflict of interest in the department.

Last year, the county added Rock Solid Project Solutions to a short list of firms pre-qualified to be the primary contractor for construction management services on public works projects of $10 million or less. Rock Solid is owned by Raquel Floyd, the wife of Jimmy Floyd, the head of the county’s construction management division, which manages these contracts.

So far, the county has not awarded a contract directly to Rock Solid as a primary contractor. The Las Vegas Review-Journal previously reported that Rock Solid had been paid $442,200 over the past four years through county contracts awarded to other companies on which it served as a subcontractor, typically as a scheduler.

To become pre-qualified to serve as a primary contractor, Rock Solid was ranked by county evaluators. Although Jimmy Floyd was not among the evaluators, county spokesperson Jennifer Cooper said he did prepare the statement of qualifications, the document used to demonstrate a firm’s qualifications.

She confirmed that the evaluators worked under Floyd in the construction management division. They ranked Rock Solid second on a list of four companies that pre-qualified.

The ranking was called into doubt in an anonymous complaint to county officials, which questioned whether division staff could credibly evaluate the boss’s wife. The integrity of the ranking, the complaint states, would have been affected by “fear of retaliation for submitting a fair review.”

Sources familiar with county bidding processes also criticized the ranking process. The Review-Journal granted them anonymity to prevent retaliation by the county.

Cooper said the county continues to investigate claims made in the complaint, which was emailed to county officials in December and later obtained by the newspaper.

Through a records request, the newspaper obtained three evaluations of Rock Solid for pre-qualification. All three evaluations noted that the company was a subcontractor, not the primary contractor, on the projects it listed to demonstrate its qualifications. The evaluations vary widely in their assessments, scoring the firm three out of 10, five of 10 and nine out of 10.

The county declined to match the names of employees to the evaluations, claiming a need to “ensure a fair and impartial evaluation process.”

Jimmy Floyd, who previously referred a reporter to the county’s public information officer, did not respond to a subsequent request for comment. Raquel Floyd did not return the reporter’s phone calls.

Divided on best firm for job

The complaint also claimed preferential treatment in the December award of a $10 million construction management contract to a team that included Rock Solid as a subcontractor, with records showing that its share of earnings was anticipated to be $1.5 million.

The contract, awarded to Diversified Consulting Services as the prime contractor, is to oversee construction for the Clark County 215 Beltway & Summerlin Parkway Interchange Project, which at $130 million is the largest of the county’s current public works projects.

Qualifications required for the project’s construction management contract were “unusually specific and difficult to meet, raising suspicions that the project was tailored to favor DCS and Rock Solid,” according to the complaint.

The score sheets for the firms’ proposals, obtained through a records request, show that another construction management firm, WSP, received the highest number of points from three of five evaluators. However, its total points were 389.3, compared with DCS’ 415.5. The other firms, Horrocks and CA Group, received 375.4 and 369 points, respectively.

DCS said it partnered with Rock Solid on the project because it has whom it considers to be the top local schedule reviewer. Representatives of the other firms in the running declined to comment.

In response to a reporter’s questions, Cooper confirmed Wednesday that Jimmy Floyd was one of the evaluators of the firms’ submissions for the interchange contract. She also said he prepared the request for qualifications.

The request stated that bonus points would be awarded for participation in the contract by disadvantaged business enterprises, which are minority- or women-owned businesses. Rock Solid is a certified disadvantaged business enterprise.

County regulations do not require the use of disadvantaged enterprises. However, “The County encourages its departments to include disadvantage businesses in the procurement of County projects,” Cooper wrote.

The request for qualifications stated that the most qualified teams would be interviewed. However, interviews were not conducted, with Jimmy Floyd informing the firms that they had not been selected, according to the complaint.

Sources familiar with the county’s award process said it was highly unusual that interviews were not given, especially considering the divided opinions among the evaluators.

Disclosure at issue

Clark County commissioners approved both the interchange contract and Rock Solid’s addition to the list of pre-qualified construction managers as part of their consent agendas, where the commission votes on ostensibly routine items in one fell swoop. The reports by staff for the agenda items do not disclose the financial relationship between Jimmy Floyd and Rock Solid.

A government watchdog previously told the Review-Journal that the approval process for the interchange contract demonstrated a lack of internal controls. Government agencies need a robust and transparent process for evaluating potential conflicts, said Geoffrey Lawrence, director of research for Nevada Policy, a nonpartisan, libertarian-leaning think tank that scrutinizes government spending.

Jimmy Floyd, who began as division head in November 2018, in April 2019 and again in March of this year filed a county financial disclosure statement reporting a direct financial interest in Rock Solid. The 2019 report states that he had released all ownership rights.

Commissioner Jim Gibson said in an interview he had not been briefed on a potential conflict of interest prior to the recent vote on the interchange contract. He also said he did not have enough information to know whether a disclosure should have been made at the time of the vote.

“I don’t know what was communicated internally in the Public Works Department,” he said. “I don’t know the detail of who reviewed or had influence over the award.”

He said he would know more once the county’s investigation had been completed and he had been briefed on it.

Commission Chairman Tick Segerblom said he could not speak to what he described as a personnel matter.

Commissioners William McCurdy II, Michael Naft, Marilyn Kirkpatrick, April Becker and Justin Jones did not return a reporter’s phone calls.

The county has not made Public Works Director Denis Cederburg available for an interview.

Cooper said the county is putting new guardrails in place regarding potential conflicts of interest.

“Work is being done to establish a process to identify and disclose conflicts of interest with subcontractors,” she wrote in an email. “Currently, conflicts of interests with (primary) contractors are disclosed and mitigated. There will likely be additional changes made and those will be implemented soon.”

She did not specify these changes or provide a time frame for when the investigation would be completed.

Contact Mary Hynes at mhynes@reviewjournal.com or at 702-383-0336. Follow @MaryHynes1 on X. Hynes is a member of the Review-Journal’s investigative team, focusing on reporting that holds leaders and agencies accountable and exposes wrongdoing.