High Performance Government Contract Revised One Day After State Audit (Update)
Posted by Jeff Pruitt - 12/17/08 @ 8:59 am - Filed Under Featured, Local Politics
My public access request for a copy of the High Performance Government Network contract (pages 1, 2, 3) was finally granted and what I found was quite interesting.
Readers might remember that the original HPGN contract was a hastily concocted one-page document essentially saying that the city was paying a $95k membership fee to join the organization. There was quite an uproar about this at the time and the State Board of Accounts even singled this contract out in their audit:
We recommend this contract be approved by Common Council before any additional payments to HPG Network are remitted.
We could not verify that the city received $95,000 in services for the year 2007 when the contract was only in effect for four days in 2007 (December 27, 2007 to December 31, 2007) and while the HPG Network employees were also city employees.
Now in the most recent HPGN city council discussion we found out that the city wasn’t simply paying for membership dues but that the $95k we paid in 2007 was for 2008 services. This was contrary to the original contract and previous administration statements. One could only surmise that the administration’s change in tune was due to the SBOA rebuke.
But now that I’ve obtained the latest contract I think the evidence speaks for itself. The SBOA audit is dated Sept 29 and the city executed a new contract with the HPGN on Sept 30 - with a little more detail, probably in an attempt to satisfy the SBOA’s complaints. Yet the administration still ignored the SBOA recommendation that the contract be approved by city council. I think this generates a whole new set of questions.
Why did the city deem it necessary to execute a new contract one day after the SBOA audit? And perhaps more importantly given the history of this contract, why wasn’t that information provided to councilmembers before the last discussion?
This contract still stinks but the stench is getting worse by the day. Signing a new contract one day after the SBOA audit and not telling anyone on city council (not to mention the public) is unacceptable. The more one digs at this the more muck comes to the surface…
Update: Stephen Parker of Around Fort Wayne has video of last night’s council meeting where councilman Mitch Harper comments on the newly revealed HPGN contract.
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10 Responses to “High Performance Government Contract Revised One Day After State Audit (Update)”
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Some thoughts and concerns:
1) New contract continues to be weak on deliverables.
2) New contract contains no benchmarks or milestones for the three year duration of the contract.
3) New contract continues to include only one City signer: Roller.
4) Looking back at the PO, the encumbrance is charged to “Public Relations,” of all things, with a memo saying “Dues: Memberships, etc.”
5) How does this annual amount compare to other Public Relations, Dues, Membership expenses?
6) Is this an increase in Public Relations expenses or were other costs reduced?
7) How many other City of Fort Wayne vendors are paid in advance?
8) Since these three payments are all in advance, what sort of retainage is being held to assure performance.
9) How will City of Fort Wayne know it received $285,000 of value.
10) Can I get the City to fund my start up company, please?
[...] around at least another month. Frankly I’m somewhat surprised they announced this given the latest High Performance Government contract revelation and her less-than-forthcoming appearance before city [...]
Dawn,
All interesting observations. I don’t have any doubt they executed this new contract in an effort to cover up something related to the old contract. But what’s extremely odd is the new contract is still weak - as you rightly point out…
Interesting times as this ole problem resurfaces with apparently no lessons learned from the June 17 Common Council admonishments.
That’s when Councilman Tom Smith said to the three City contract defenders: “I know about ‘best practices,’ and this was not best practices. We heard it is legal; but it is not best practices; and it is unfortunate.”
And Council President Tom Didier concurred: “I agree with Tom Smith. You should have taken the initiative. An aspect of this is we constantly deal with ethics all the time. This could have been avoided. And I am not saying there is any wrongdoing. “
The final word at the hearing belonged to President Didier: “I hope there is a lesson to be learned here…. In the future, I hope this comes forward.”
It’s pretty clear what Council expected-and that’s not what happened-and ethics-yes-it is about ethics and prudent judgment.
We hear that “technically” this contract process was legal. To couch this with “technically legal” means there must be higher standards of propriety at issue.
Dawn,
Get your husband to fund your startup.
Jeff,
Pages 1 and 3 are the same- did you upload the wrong page 3?
Kevin,
I linked the wrong image but I’ve fixed it now. Thanks for pointing out the error…
Kevin,Jeff -
Thank you for pointing out and fixing problem on page 3. I now see some deliverables.
Truth be told- I read it twice before I realized it was the wrong page 3!
[...] of interest rules. And don’t forget that the city controller failed to mention she had executed a new contract last time she was brought before city council to discuss the [...]