The District’s inspector general has come down hard on the Department of Health and an unnamed senior employee for signing a contract that violated the city’s procurement laws and may have been a bad deal for taxpayers.

An audit released this week revealed that a $936,000 contract for nonemergency transportation of Medicaid recipients, authorized in May 2002 by a senior official in the Medical Assistance Administration, bypassed procurement laws and left the city holding the bag for a deal no one can say was worth the money.