On Feb. 10, Maine's highest court, the Supreme Judicial Court, upheld a state agency's bid award for Waldo County nonemergency transportation to ModivCare Solutions LLC, effectively replacing current contract holder Waldo Community Action Partners (Waldo CAP).

That bid award had been contested by Waldo CAP,  which maintained that the state's Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) had violated procurement laws.

Waldo CAP had appealed the 2023 DHHS bid award to the Maine Department of Administrative and Financial Services (DAFS), but that agency upheld the grant award. Waldo CAP then appealed to Waldo County Superior Court in the case Waldo Community Action Partners v. Department of Administrative and Financial Services et al. That court upheld the previous decisions that ModivCare Solutions would get the bid award.

Waldo CAP then appealed to the Maine Supreme Court.

According to the decision filed by the Supreme Court, in the Maine DHHS had circulated invitations to bid on the transportation service contract to help MaineCare recipients make medical visits. 

Since 2014, Waldo CAP had the transportation contract for the Waldo County Region 5 but in 2023 DHHS and DAFS opened the bidding process and five proposals were subsequently submitted. 

The RFP process used by DHHS has been called into question and in early January, state lawmakers sent a letter to Gov. Janet Mills urging the state to cut business ties with ModivCare. According to WABI TV, Maine's 10-year, $750 million contract with MovidCare has raised statewide concerns.

Waldo CAP's proposal did not score as high as that of ModivCare LLC, with the review panel concluding that Waldo CAP did not fully complete the submission as specified in the original request for proposals.

Waldo CAP appealed the review panel's decision, and after that appeal was denied, the nonprofit filed another appeal in May 2024 to Waldo County Superior Court. In January 2025, that court upheld the appeal committee's decision.

Waldo CAP said that the contract was awarded to ModivCare in error and violated the requirement that contracts go to the best-value bidder. Furthermore, Waldo CAP said the decision-making was arbitrary and capricious.

The Maine Supreme Judicial Court said, however: "The thrust of Waldo CAP’s argument is that because it scored higher on the RFP’s Section III—Proposed Services—and because it was the established, incumbent provider of those services in Region 5, it is a logical inevitability to conclude that it should have been awarded the contract and the decision to do otherwise based on the contents of Section II violated section 1825-B(7).

"This argument is misguided and assumes an overly narrow interpretation of the statute as applied here. The RFP sought specific information to evaluate the bidders’ overall NET brokerage expertise, not just a bidder’s experience or the quality of services provided in a particular region."

The Supreme Court concluded: "On the record before the appeal committee, therefore, we cannot say that the evidence compelled a finding, by clear and convincing evidence, that the review panel’s scoring resulting in the award of the contract toModivCare was arbitrary or capricious and we affirm the judgment affirming the appeal committee’s decision."