Texas Comptroller Bars Entities Tied to Convicted Traffickers From Comptroller Contracts and Grants
Texas Comptroller Don Huffines signed an executive order Thursday barring any entity with financial participation by a convicted human-trafficking offender from receiving a contract or grant from his office - and writing a self-certification, with payment-withholding and immediate-termination teeth, into every future agreement.
Texas's chief financial officer moved Thursday to close a gap between contracts and grants. Comptroller Don Huffines announced an executive order barring any entity with financial participation by a convicted human-trafficking offender from receiving a Texas Comptroller of Public Accounts contract or grant. Texas law - Government Code Section 2155.0061 - already barred state agencies from awarding a contract that includes financial participation by a person convicted in the preceding five years of an offense related to the direct support or promotion of human trafficking. That prohibition, his office said, applied to state contracts but not to grants. The order closes the gap for every agreement his office administers.
'Human trafficking is pure evil, and Texas will not allow a single dollar of public money to flow to anyone connected to it,' Huffines said in the announcement. 'No agency, no nonprofit, no contractor should ever benefit from state funding if the organization has financial participation from someone convicted of such a horrific crime.'
The mechanism is a certification with consequences. Under the order, every contractor and grantee must certify that it is eligible under Section 2155.0061 - that no person with financial participation in the entity carries such a conviction from the preceding five years - and must acknowledge that the Comptroller's office may withhold payment if the certification is inaccurate, or terminate the agreement immediately, without further obligation. The requirements apply to all future Comptroller contracts and grants, and the office said it will incorporate the certification into all relevant solicitations and agreements going forward.
It is the fourth order in a series Huffines has issued this month writing new standard terms into his office's agreements: an October 13 order banning the use of Comptroller grant money for Flock cameras, automated license plate readers and other vehicle-identification systems; an October 15 order barring taxpayer dollars for what the announcement calls discriminatory Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion initiatives; and an October 21 order barring businesses that demand COVID-19 vaccine passports from Comptroller contracts and grants. His office said more standard terms will be announced in the coming weeks.
