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public dialogue and civic engagement are important they play a role in improving the health and well-being of Texans across our great state that's why Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Texas is proud to support Texas Tribune events like the conversation you're about to see hi good afternoon I'm Terry Langford with Texas Tribune for the past six months the unraveling of a 20 million-dollar no bid contract for fraud tracking software between Texas Health and Human Services Commission and a little-known awesome firm named 21c has taken the center's news stage here in Austin last December state officials cancelled a 90 million dollar extension with 21 CT after was revealed HHS sees top lawyer was once a business partner of 21 CTS lobbyists how the deal came together has preoccupied for investigations right now two of those with the Travis County District Attorney's Office and the P I you and the FBI are still ongoing and as a result lawmakers can't stop talking about contract reform in this session this afternoon I'm going to talk to a man at the center of all of these investigations but one he he conducted himself Billy Hamilton so hold on sorry we gotta edit as we go because we had so many other introductions to go Billy Hamilton is the executive Chancellor and CFO for the Texas A&M University System and he was tapped by governor Greg Abbott a few months ago to lead a strike force team to examine the decisions and processes that led to the 21 CT contract he's a veteran government manager having served 16 years with as deputy Texas Comptroller he's worked on everything from secret to cap metro and his team's recent report speaks of an agency and quiet turmoil so Billy let me talk to first about what surprised you the most after you and your team got to HHS see well you got it yeah I want to make sure it's working can you hear that okay good little up closer to your mouth no closer to my mouth I always have an inclination to start singing feelings when I I you know I don't think anything was a dramatic surprise I think Commissioner Janek I mean the governor gave us authorities to look at whatever we wanted and Commissioner Janek gave us access to really all of his staff and they were very cooperative I think they were ready to talk about the situation because they were frustrated and and and they felt like they were being tainted by this single contract and I you know but it became pretty clear to my colleague Heather Griffin Peterson and I and that that is your your strike force to people that you know there were some broader issues and I I felt like there were a couple of things that needed to be avoided in the work to deal with this situation is one we didn't want to see contract management for the entire state damaged by what was really the actions of a few people on one contract and second we felt there were other issues that had particularly come out of the sunset report notably consolidation of...