Senate ethics hears witnesses on Senator Ellsworth’s Agile Analytics contracts; auditor finds waste and abuse

A Montana Senate Ethics Committee hearing on the contracts Senator Jason Ellsworth submitted for Agile Analytics centered on whether procurement rules and disclosure duties were followed and on a legislative auditor finding of waste and abuse.

Director Diane Giles, director of the Department of Administration, told the committee that two contracts and matching invoices for a combined $170,100 were presented to legislative staff as fully executed on Dec. 26, 2024, and that the department treated the documents as binding when they appeared. “When we had our conversation, he did note there were two different contracts...in the documentation that came across, my staff alerted me that the two contracts were already fully executed,” Giles testified.

The Legislative Audit Division, which opened a hotline investigation after a complaint in mid‑January, concluded the procurement process had been short‑circuited and published a memo dated Jan. 24 finding both “abuse” and “waste.” Angus MacKeever, the legislature’s auditor, summarized the office’s conclusions for the committee, saying the contract sequence and payment terms deprived the state “of the financial benefits of open competition.” Ken Barnes, legal counsel for the legislative auditor’s office, described the office’s review of public records and a federal court filing that indicated longer‑term business connections between the vendor’s president and Mr. Ellsworth.

Witnesses described the timeline in detail. Diane Giles said she first learned of the arrangements…