PROVIDENCE — Denouncing as “outrageous” the 145.99-percent markup the state has been paying a private company to staff the traffic-monitoring center across the street from the State House, Governor Carcieri yesterday initiated an inquiry into “all state contracts that involve the retention of professional services.”

He also announced that the company, Vanasse Hangen Brustlin, had agreed after a telephone call yesterday from state transportation director Jerome Williams to slash its overhead-and-profit rate to 22.5 percent for those among the 36 workers doing largely “administrative” tasks — including the “typist” for whom the state had been paying the company the equivalent of $102,858.

Saying he was unaware of the VHB staffing contract until it was brought to light by The Providence Journal this week, Carcieri said he has now asked Gerald Aubin, the former deputy Providence police chief who heads the state Lottery, to lead a task force charged with finding out whether any other “similarly outrageous arrangements might exist in other departments of state government.”

The governor said he had asked Aubin “to review all these contracts to determine if the state is paying similar overhead rates in any other instance, to compile a comprehensive list of these contracts and their costs, and to determine what, if any, work would better be performed by state employees.”

Asked why Carcieri tapped Aubin for the task, Carcieri spokesman Jeff Neal said: “The governor thought it was important to have a fresh perspective on the issue of contracts. The people who understand the system have been involved in these discussions for several months. The governor thought it was important to have someone who could walk in from the outside and take a look at it from that perspective.”

Aubin is to report back to the governor and the Senate Government Oversight Committee by June 22. Neal said Aubin will be given whatever help he requests.

The VHB staffing contract — financed 80 percent by the federal government — is the latest to emerge in the escalating controversy over the Carcieri administration’s use of private companies to staff state government.

As recently as last week, the governor was accusing Senate Democrats of leading a union-driven fishing expedition into his administration’s contracting practices, and publicly asking the audit bureau within the Department of Administration to investigate the role a member of the Senate government oversight committee — Sen. Frank Ciccone, D-Providence — played in the 2000 award of a record-storage contract.

But he took a new tack yesterday after The Journal reported details of VHB’s four-year, $8.4-milion contract to staff the Transportation Management Center that oversees the 85 traffic-monitoring cameras along major roads and produces the traffic accident and construction reports on the radio.

Here’s the way the 2004 contract, expiring in January 2008, has worked, according to information provided by the DOT in response to a public records request:

At $18.35 an hour, clerk-typist Karenlee Bernardo makes the equivalent of $38,181 a year.

The other $64,690 goes to the company that employs her, Vanasse Hangen Brustlin Inc., for “overhead” (145.99 percent) and “profit” (10 percent).

In her case, the state is paying thousands more to hire a clerk-typist through Vanasse Hangen Brustlin than it would to hire a full-time state employee. Pay for a clerk-typist typist starts at $26,746 a year (or $14.70 an hour).

The state pays another $8,716 (32.59 percent) in Social Security taxes and fringe benefits, including unemployment, workers’ compensation and retirement contributions. Family health coverage would cost $15,820 more. With wages and benefits totaling $51,282, this worker would cost half what the state is paying VHB.

In all, there were 36 VHB employees working for the DOT during the last pay period, including staff engineers, draftsmen, operators and typists making between $13.50 and $80 an hour.

Asked to delineate the company’s overhead, Williams acknowledged questions of his own, saying: “They are using our computers. They are using our utilities…housed in our building.”

The governor said: “The “extraordinary overhead rate … appears to be mandated by a federal law governing federally funded engineering contracts.”

A spokesman for the Federal Highway Administration confirmed this week the existence of a law, dating back to the 1980s, that gives state the ability to pay “what the market will bear” for construction and engineering talent. The notion: the lowest bidder may not be the most qualified bidder to build a heavily traveled roadway or bridge.

Spokesman Doug Hecox said the law spells out a methodology for determining payment rates for a contract such as this for “specialty service jobs, that require special training for which the market can be competitive.” He said the amounts can vary from state to state and he could not vouch for the 145.99 percent paid VHB.

As for the $102,858-a-year typist, he said, “that’s why many states are beginning to look at” separating their construction contracts so they “are not spending so much on services that shouldn’t cost that much.”

Yesterday, for the second day in a row, Carcieri said he was personally “appalled to learn that the RIDOT was paying a 145.99 percent markup for engineering services on a federally funded contract with Vanasse Hangen Brustlin.”

But he said he was told that “since before I took office, federal officials have consistently pointed to a federal law that they claim requires this markup…In fact, before this new contract was approved in 2003, the DOT paid a similar overhead cost to the company that held the previous contract, which was awarded during the Almond administration.

“Apparently, DOT officials have never previously questioned the legal interpretation that was provided them by the federal government,” he said.

What little is known about the genesis of the 145.99-percent markup is an April 4, 2004, memorandum from the DOT auditor, Elizabeth J. Swartz, to the agency’s chief of audit and review, James R. Choquette, that said: “A limited review was performed on the above subject consulting firm….No detailed audit is necessary. It is recommended that the rate of 145.99 percent, as accepted by the Massachusetts Highway Department and adjusted for the state of Rhode Island, be accepted…”

Williams yesterday said he has now “started a conversation” with federal highway officials, questioned why we can’t negotiate the overhead rate,” and asked for a meeting with them in a couple of weeks.”

Asked yesterday for comment on Carcieri calling for an investigation of professional-services contracts, Sen. J. Michael Lenihan, the East Greenwich Democrat leading the Senate inquiry, said:: “Well quite honestly, it’s an absurd situation. It merits investigation.

“I guess my question is, whatever the role of the federal government in terms of mandating this kind of thing, didn’t somebody have the common sense somewhere along the line to say — ‘Wait a minute. This is absurd.’ — and call it into question. Apparently that didn’t happen.”

Asked yesterday if he believed there were any other DOT contracts with similar overhead rates, Williams said: “There are other engineering contracts where there are overhead rates.” This high? “I can’t tell you if this is higher or lower.”

kgregg@projo.com