JACKSONVILLE, Fla. \u2014 A Jacksonville city councilman is raising conflict of interest concerns after Action News Jax Ben Becker uncovered that a high-powered law firm is contracted to be paid thousands of dollars to evaluate Jacksonville\u2019s telehealth program as part of a Duval DOGE investigation. <\/p>\n
The investigation centers around telehealth provider Telescope Health<\/a>, which is under scrutiny by DOGE<\/a> over allegations of fraud<\/a>, claims the company has strongly denied.<\/p>\n City Council Secretary Jason Teal hired former General Counsel Jason Gabriel<\/a> and his firm Burr & Forman in December to produce an independent report on the city\u2019s telehealth services. According to the engagement letter, which was approved by City Council President Kevin Carrico, Burr & Forman is authorized to bill the city up to $40,000 for all its DOGE work at an hourly rate of $400 for Partners and $350 for Associates. Teal previously served as deputy General Counsel under Gabriel. Action News Jax has made numerous requests for invoices of all the work that has been billed to the city, but those have not been released as of publication. <\/p>\n Here\u2019s the full engagement letter:<\/p>\n Conflict of interest?<\/p>\n Burr & Forman, where Gabriel is a partner<\/a>, formerly represented a separate telehealth company, RightSite Health, during its acquisition of a contract with the Jacksonville Fire and Rescue Department (JFRD). Some council members have suggested that RightSite could offer services similar to those provided by Telescope Health.<\/p>\n City Councilman Jimmy Peluso voiced strong concerns about the situation, suggesting Gabriel has a conflict of interest even if the law firm is no longer representing RightSite Health. <\/p>\n \u201cEverything just smells wrong. Another reiteration of the good ol\u2019 boys network. Sure, things are technically okay, they are technically legal, but it\u2019s not the right thing to do. How many other attorneys are there in the city of Jacksonville?\u201d<\/p>\n Gabriel maintains his firm\u2019s prior work with RightSite Health was fully disclosed in the engagement letter. He added that he is preparing a \u201cfact-based draft analysis\u201d of the city\u2019s telehealth options, using interviews, interrogatories, and document reviews. He emphasized that the report is being developed under the direction of and will require final approval from the City Council.<\/p>\n The final report is expected to be released next week.<\/p>\n Here\u2019s the full purchase order from the city:<\/p>\n >>> STREAM ACTION NEWS JAX LIVE <<<<\/a><\/p>\n [DOWNLOAD: Free Action News Jax app for alerts as news breaks<\/a>]<\/p>\n [SIGN UP: Action News Jax Daily Headlines Newsletter<\/a>] <\/p>\n Click here<\/a> to download the free Action News Jax news and weather apps, click here<\/a> to download the Action News Jax Now app for your smart TV and click here<\/a> to stream Action News Jax live.<\/p>\n Action News Jax Top Stories<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"JACKSONVILLE, Fla. \u2014 A Jacksonville city councilman is raising conflict of interest concerns after Action News Jax Ben…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":255288,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[111042,344,25320,111040,347,9024,12813,28,348,116,351,118,117,111039,111041,349,350,7426,42497,346,345],"class_list":["post-255977","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-jacksonville","tag-40k-report","tag-action-news-jax","tag-ben-becker","tag-burr-forman","tag-cbs47","tag-city-of-jacksonville","tag-duval-doge","tag-florida","tag-fox30","tag-jacksonville","tag-jacksonville-fl","tag-jacksonville-headlines","tag-jacksonville-news","tag-jason-gabriel","tag-jason-teal","tag-northeast-florida","tag-southeast-georgia","tag-telehealth","tag-telescope-health","tag-wfox","tag-wjax"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/255977","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=255977"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/255977\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/255288"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=255977"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=255977"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=255977"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}