A former Montana Senate leader’s $170,100 government contract with a business acquaintance was a wasteful and abusive use of state funds, the Legislative Auditor concluded Friday.
Sen. Jason Ellsworth, a Hamilton Republican, entered into a government contract with Bryce Eggleston, a former employee of Ellsworth’s private business, that ignored state competitive bidding requirements for high-dollar agreements.
The senator split the contract for services with Eggleston’s newly created company, Agile Analytics, into two agreements as an attempted work-around state law, Legislative Auditor Angus Maciver concluded in an initial report released Friday. The Legislative Auditor conducts investigations of state agencies and into reports of waste, fraud and abuse submitted anonymously to the fraud hotline, as was the report against Ellsworth.
Because Ellsworth had already signed an agreement with Eggleston, state officials considered the contract binding and went along with it knowing the law was being violated, the report said.
“There was and is no logical reason that the original contracts were bifurcated other than to unlawfully avoid oversight of the contracts by the Department of Administration, which oversees procurement of services and supplies by state agencies of all procurements over $100,000,” Maciver concluded in his report. “State law specifically prohibits artificially dividing contracts to avoid the required procurement process. Thus, these actions constitute an abuse of his government position by the former Senate president.”
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Ellsworth, who told the press earlier in the week that he had done nothing wrong and was being politically persecuted, did not respond to calls and text messages sent Friday. He was not in his office at the Capitol when Montana Free Press stopped by late Friday afternoon.
At the time Ellsworth was brokering the contract, he was president of the Montana Senate, but his term expired at the end of 2024.
Current President Matt Regier, a Kalispell Republican, and Senate Minority Leader Pat Flowers, a Belgrade Democrat, both expressed concern about Maciver’s findings.
“We take any waste or abuse of taxpayer dollars very seriously,” Flowers said Friday. “Furthermore, it is our responsibility to hold our colleagues accountable for their actions. It is clear that Sen. Ellsworth’s conduct fell below the high standards Montanans expect from their elected representatives. This matter should be referred to the Senate Ethics Committee for further review and an appropriate resolution.”
In a text message Friday, Regier said he would review the report and respond with a plan forward.
“I’m reviewing the Legislative Auditor’s initial report in detail and I’m glad to see the Senate minority finally expressing concern over the situation. I plan to speak more on this highly concerning issue on Monday,” Regier said.
Eggleston, under the agreement, was to be paid $170,100 to monitor how state agencies rolled out several would-be laws to limit the powers of Montana courts, a project Ellsworth and other Republicans worked on for nine months in 2024. Eggleston submitted a request for payment in early January, which the staff of the Montana Legislature didn’t fulfill, according to Maciver’s report.
Monday, Ellsworth said the deal was off, explaining that Eggleston no longer wanted the work because the contract had become too politicized. Calls and text messages to Eggleston by Montana Free Press earlier this week were unreturned.
The clock was running out on Ellsworth’s tenure when the contract was awarded. He approached state officials with the agreement already signed on Dec. 27. Legislative staff was uncomfortable with the size of the payout, which exceeded the $100,000 maximum for a government contract issued without oversight by the Department of Administration.
Ellsworth then called Department of Administration Director Misty Ann Giles to sign off on the agreement with the $170,100 divided into two contracts.
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“According to our interview with Giles, Sen. Ellswoth called her while she was out of state on vacation and requested her department’s assistance,” Maciver said in his report.
Giles and legislative staff told investigators that they were uncomfortable with the contract, but like Ellworth’s authority, the window of opportunity to spend the funds was also timing out.
An attorney for the Legislative Services Division concluded that the agreement with Eggleston was wrongfully divided into two contracts to avoid the law. Counsel Jaret Coles advised against honoring the agreement.
But Giles said that Ellsworth already signing the agreement with Eggleston made denying the contract problematic.
“The director saw that the two contracts had already been signed and therefore, despite attorney Coles’ opinion to the contrary, felt the sole source justification as a moot issue, as there was already a binding contract between the state and Agile,” Maciver reported.
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