Oakland County supervisors knew a $450,000 service contract they approved violated state law and the county’s own conflict of interest rules, according to an independent investigation.
It is an example of a tech philosophy of “move fast and break things.”
In emails and documents obtained by The Oakland Press through a freedom of information request, county employees said they were “skating around the process” when they approved the three-year contract in June with ZaydLogix, a newly created IT staffing company that was part of a county employee’s retirement plan.
Responding to a tip, a county investigation found the conflict and canceled the contract in July.
The county then paid the law firm Miller, Canfield, Paddock & Stone $17,836 for an independent investigation and report.
The law firm interviewed county officials and employees and read documents, emails, and text messages.
No evidence of kickbacks or price rigging was found by investigators, according to the report by the law firm hired to examine 130 county IT contracts, the report said.
But in text messages and emails obtained by The Oakland Press, some county IT supervisors, employees and contractors knew there was a conflict of interest and in some cases helped decide which people ZaydLogix would hire for the contract.
County employees are barred from having outside contracts with the county. Shukur Mohammad, an application architect in the county’s IT department since 2016, created ZaydLogix in 2024 and bid on a request for proposal issued last year. The county signed a contract with his company on June 13.
A March 27 text from Chief Technology Officer EJ Widun to another county IT official, Tom Wydra, says he met with officials from a second staffing company, Blue Chip, to talk about the ZaydLogix contract. Widun wrote that Blue Chip officials “want to make sure that this creative solution will not damage their relationship with the county because we are skating around the process.”
ZaydLogix Texts_-_phone_numbers_redacted
In a June 17 email Tom Wydra introduced Milwaukee-based Al Balda of The Concept4 branding and marking firm to Mohammad in his role as ZaydLogix founder. Balda was later listed as a ZaydLogix contractor, earning $150 an hour. Wydra also asked Mohammad to hire former Troy Police Chief Charles Craft, who specializes in technology. Craft was also to be paid $150 an hour.
The law firm’s report said the county did not make any payments on the contract and that Mohammad did not attempt to defraud the county. The report said county IT supervisors should have waited for Mohammad to retire to execute the ZaydLogix contract.
Two deputy county executives shared details of the report with county commissioners during their legislative and governmental operations committee Tuesday morning.
Walt Herzig, chief deputy executive, and Sean Carlson, who manages technology and economic development, told commissioners that the county will not seek criminal charges – a misdemeanor under state law – based upon the report’s findings. Herzig said.
Carlson said the county has a history of using multiple tech staffing agencies to get the best-qualified contractors for specific, short-term jobs. But in the rush for efficiency, he said, “the ends don’t justify the means.”
ZaydLogix was one of 130 tech staffing companies considered for the county’s Courts and Law Enforcement Management Information Systems (CLEMIS), which is transforming from a county program to an independent authority.
The investigation found no evidence of attempts to defraud the county or of attempts by employees or contractors to rig pricing for personal benefit or existence of a kickback scheme, but said it “appears that CLEMIS managers used an ‘outcome over the means’ approach to retain specific, known persons as contracted staff for CLEMIS.”
HOW IT STARTED
In July, county officials were tipped off by an anonymous email that ZaydLogix was owned by Mohammad.
Carlson suspended the contract immediately after a brief internal investigation. Zaydlogix did not receive any county money. The people Zaydlogix hired were transferred to other staffing companies with county contracts.
Four employees were expected to be disciplined in July: Three senior-level IT employees and another employee. County officials did not release their names and did not specify the discipline, but options ranged from a verbal or written reprimand, withholding a pay increase, suspending pay, and/or a demotion or dismissal. Actions were suspended until after the law firm’s report.
County officials are not disclosing any other disciplinary actions as a result of the independent investigation, according to county spokesman Bill Mullan.
He said several changes were made in the immediate aftermath of the ZaydLogix contract cancellation:
• All IT senior-level and management officials were retrained on policies for conflict of interest, disclosures and standards of conduct. The county now requires all employees to review standards and policies during the health insurance enrollment season, which is now underway.
• IT and any other departments that were allowed to produce their own requests for proposals from contractors and screen applicants have lost that ability. Going forward, the procurement division will handle all aspects of new contracts, from requests for proposals to contractor selection and signing off on contracts when appropriate. It’s unclear what other departments were independently issuing requests for contract proposals.
• Future bidders will be required to fill out forms to identify conflicts of interest. This form was also sent to the remaining 129 CLEMIS bidders. All but 19 filled out the form and returned it to the county. The 19 who did not were removed from the county’s list of prequalified contractors, Herzig said, noting that removal was a standard practice and there was no suspicion of wrongdoing by those contractors, none of whom had active county agreements.
Last year, the county hired Aaron Wagner to be the county’s procurement officer. He instituted new rules a year ago for contracts but those were implemented after ZaydLogix was approved as a contractor.
On Tuesday, Herzig told commissioners the existing CLEMIS contracts will be put back out for bids in January. The current contracts will remain in effect until new contracts are finalized. Mullan said that will ensure the CLEMIS transition is uninterrupted.
MORE REPORT DETAILS
The report found that the county’s IT department used a common practice of hiring multiple staffing agencies to ensure people with the right skills could be hired for specific projects on a contract basis. The county typically used five-year cycles to create these pools of temporary workers and if the IT Department opted to move forward, a contract would be entered at that time. Carlson said Mohammad did not want to miss the five-year window for a contract before his retirement. He and Herzig said Mohammad still works for the county.
The 2024 request by the county’s IT department didn’t include the conflict-of-interest language, Miller, Canfield’s report found.
The report doesn’t name who evaluated ZaydLogix’s proposed contract but “they did not believe that approving ZaydLogix’s bid would be problematic because the evaluator understood that the employee who owns Zaydlogix was contemplating retirement and that CLEMIS would soon be a separate Authority.”
Oakland County has 5,300 employees and a nearly $1.2 billion budget to manage 900 square miles of infrastructure and programs for 1.3 million residents.
This story will be updated as new information is available.
Originally Published: October 21, 2025 at 1:01 PM EDT