HELENA - The state of Montana appears on the verge of inking a $29 million deal with a global services company for software work that will be done, in part, overseas by foreign employees.

Meanwhile, one of the companies that lost out on the bid - a "Made In Montana" certified firm that would not have outsourced the work to foreign employees - said Monday that it was putting eight Helena workers on indefinite, unpaid furloughs.

The contract is for software to manage Montana's food stamp and cash payment welfare programs known as SNAP and TANF, respectively.

The software would manage all parts of the programs, from determining eligibility to automating checks to be mailed.

"Deloitte is the apparent successful bidder," said Ron Baldwin, administrator of the Department of Public Health and Human Services Technology Services Division.

That decision was announced last week, after a lengthy process that involved face-to-face presentations from the top-scoring firms and a scoring process involving a seven-member committee that evaluated all five of the proposals the state received.

Baldwin said Deloitte wasn't the low bidder. However, the lowest bidder was eliminated in an early round of evaluations.

Deloitte is an accounting and services firm with offices around the world. The company specializes, in part, in working with state and federal governments in a variety ways, according to the Deloitte corporate Web site.

The company has no Montana office, although state records list two women as Deloitte contacts. Neither responded to phone or e-mail requests for comment for this story. A Deloitte spokeswoman in Houston also did not respond to a reporter's telephone call for this story.

Deloitte indicated in its proposal that some of the software work for Montana would be done overseas, Baldwin said. Deloitte's proposal also indicated that the company would not create the software from scratch, but would piggyback on existing Deloitte software already used by another state.

It's "not unusual at all," Baldwin said, for the kind of global services firms who seek such state contracts to do some of their work overseas. Baldwin said Montana has requested that Deloitte locate the key people for the Montana project in the state, meaning the company probably will move or hire "at least a dozen" employees in Montana.

"They would have to set up an office here, too," he said.

At present, the software running the programs is maintained by Northrop Grumman, largely known as a defense contractor that also has a services branch. Northrop Grumman operates a 125-person Helena office, which is a certified "Made In Montana" business, according to state information.

A local Northrop Grumman manager did not return phone calls for this story. However, a source who asked to remain unnamed, told the Gazette State Bureau on Monday that the Helena branch has put eight employees on unpaid furloughs with no end date.

Northrop Grumman would not have outsourced the work to overseas offices, Baldwin said.

The deal is not set in stone.

It has not yet been signed by Anna Whiting Sorrell, director of the Department of Public Health and Human Services, and it must pass muster with state procurement officials.

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