By Kim Chandler, al.com
on July 28, 2013 at 7:30 AM, updated July 28, 2013 at 7:31 AM

MONTGOMERY, Alabama – Speaker of the House Mike Hubbard twice in the last 18 months has gone to the staff of the Alabama Ethics Commission to discuss contracts his company planned to enter into, including a $144,000-a-year contract to be an economic development consultant.

Hubbard’s company, The Auburn Network Inc., has agreements to provide consulting work to the Southeast Alabama Gas District and also to an organization that promotes the interest of independent pharmacists.

Hubbard said his company does business development work for the Bessemer-based American Pharmacy Cooperative, Inc., a group purchasing organization which represents independent pharmacists in 23 states. Hubbard said he only works on out-of-state matters for the group.

“They are a client of Auburn Network Incorporated which means it’s not solely me doing work for them but I do get involved in it. We help to build and market their brand and business development. In that one, we don’t do any work in the state of Alabama. It’s only in states other than Alabama,” Hubbard said.

The House General Fund budget committee in April inserted language in the General Fund budget that could have benefited APCI, although that language was later stripped in conference committee after concerns were raised by state Medicaid officials.

The language in the substitute bill said that any pharmacy benefit manager eventually hired by the state Medicaid program must “operate a group purchasing function with a purchasing base for generic drugs consisting of at least 30 percent of the retail pharmacies in Alabama.”

State Health Officer Don Williamson said that he knew of only one entity, APCI, that met the criteria.

“That was APCI. That’s my understanding. Is there somebody else out there? I suppose there could be but I’m just not aware of it,” Williamson said.

Williamson said state Medicaid officials did not want to be limited to one company without knowing more about the proposal.

“That was not our language. Our concern was their proposal may be a perfectly good proposal, we had no way of knowing how much money, if any, that plan would save. We talked to the chair of the budget committees about getting that language out,” Williamson said.

Hubbard said he had nothing to do with putting that language in the budget.

Rep. Greg Wren, R-Montgomery, said he sought the language to make sure that any overhaul of Alabama’s Medicaid pharmacy program was “community-led.”

“We’re talking about keeping money in Alabama and saving money for the state,” Wren said.

Wren said he never had conversations with Hubbard about the contract.

Rep. Steve Clouse, the vice-chairman of the House General Fund committee, also said he didn’t recall having any discussion about the language with Hubbard.

Clouse said rural legislators were particularly concerned about independent pharmacists because they don’t necessarily have Big Box pharmacies in their districts.

Hubbard’s company also performs work for Southeast Alabama Gas District. Southeast Alabama Gas District is a public company owned by 14 cities to provide natural gas service in the southeastern part of the state.

According to a copy of the contract voluntarily submitted to Ethics Commission staff in early 2012, Southeast Alabama Gas  agreed to pay the Auburn Network $12,000-a-month to support marketing efforts, promote the use of natural gas and to identify and deliver economic development prospects for facilities utilizing natural gas.

Hubbard said both he and other employees of the Auburn Network perform work for Southeast Alabama Gas.

“Mainly for Southeast Alabama Gas, it’s economic development and working with them to recruit new jobs and support local industry in their district and help build and market their brand,” Hubbard said.

He said recent work has included trying to recruit a company in California that is interested in locating a facility in Alabama.

“The company burns a lot of gas. My job is to help Southeast Alabama Gas put things together and help them in locating hopefully in the Southeast Alabama Gas district but if not in the state of Alabama,” Hubbard said.

Hubbard said the $12,000-a-month goes to the Auburn Network and not to him directly. He said the amount of the contract has since been reduced since that contract was submitted to the commission.

Southeast Gas paid for Hubbard’s trip to the Paris Air Show which he attended along with the official state delegation that included Gov. Robert Bentley.

Hubbard said the work is not unprecedented pointing to his predecessor.

Former Speaker of the House Seth Hammett worked as the economic development director of the Alabama Electric Cooperative, now called PowerSouth, while he was a member of the Alabama Legislature.

“From an economic development standpoint, I’ve been involved with a lot of that over the years. It’s the same thing Seth Hammett did. He did it for PowerSouth. He did it when he was speaker,” Hubbard said.

Hubbard said in both cases he sought the guidance of Ethics Commission Director Jim Sumner and Ethics Commission General Counsel Hugh Evans to make sure there were no issues with his company taking the work.

“I sit down before I do anything or any contract, or my company has a contract, with Jim Sumner and Hugh Evans out of an abundance of caution. It’s not required but I know there are people like you out looking to see if I’m doing something wrong, and I’m not going to do it,” Hubbard said.

State law bans any state official from using their position to benefit his or her specific business.

Sumner said at Hubbard’s request, they had meetings in his office to discuss both contracts.

Sumner said he saw nothing wrong with the speaker’s contracts provided Hubbard didn’t take direct action to benefit the clients of his business.

“Don’t offer something that benefits the client, don’t try to influence the votes of the other members and don’t vote on a matter to benefit the client,” Sumner said recalling his conversation with Hubbard.

Hubbard said he has followed the guidance.

“I’m very careful to make sure we don’t ever cross that line. Of course anything you do, you can try to make an argument that it could be a conflict as long as we have a citizen-legislature. We have to be able to make a living. You just have to make sure you don’t do anything to benefit,” Hubbard said.

http://blog.al.com/wire/2013/07/speakers_company_picks_up_econ.html