Shaver shares 450th contract concerns
Posted: March 27, 2015 - 1:19pm
By SHELDON GARDNER
sheldon.gardner@staugustine.com
St. Augustine Mayor Nancy Shaver has detailed her concerns about three contracts that prompted a request for a review of all 450th anniversary contracts.
Shaver and City Manager John Regan also described plans Friday for moving forward.
At Monday’s City Commission meeting, Shaver said she wanted a compliance review of all 450th contracts based on concerns about three contracts. But she declined to provide details.
Commissioners supported her meeting with Regan to discuss her specific concerns, but did not support moving forward with a larger review.
Regan and Shaver met Thursday, and they provided more details Friday.
“My requests are all around good governance, improvement of fiscal responsibility, all of those continuous improvement kinds of things that are really routine in the way organizations run their business,” Shaver said. “This is not about anything having to do with the performance of city employees. We have a superb staff. They work terribly hard.”
Regan will make a recommendation to the City Commission based on their discussions.
City contracts with Mummy Cat Productions LLC, the Noche de Gala, and Hyperscreens for the Visitor Information Center were the focus of concerns, Regan said.
The concerns were about the city’s bidding process and oversight of contracts once signed.
Shaver said the initial review has created opportunities for improvement in the process.
Regan also said the public comments at Monday’s commission meeting raised several issues about funding for the 450th anniversary.
To help answer that question, Regan plans to have staff post information on revenues and expenses on the 450th website (http://staugustine-450.com/financialoverview). That should be done soon.
The city hired Mummy Cat Productions to produce a video for the “Journey: 450 Years of the African-American Experience” exhibit. Concerns about that contract include whether officials should have gone through a more extensive bidding process that would have opened the door for more bidders, Regan said. The city had a few quotes for the video, and Mummy Cat’s agreement was for $10,000. The other two were for about $25,000. The deal was done according to policy, but it raised questions about the process.
Those questions include whether the city should have done a request for proposals or an advertised bidding process “to open up the field of play because we are committed to minority contractors and fairness and all of those things,” Regan said. Shaver added, “And I think the other question is when you have quotes where two of them are at 25 and one is at 10, different organizations handle that kind of discrepancy in different ways. In other words, typically in my experience you throw out the 10 because ... it’s so far off.”
Another concern was how contracts have been monitored for Noche de Gala.
The Noche de Gala, which began in the late ’90s, is a celebration of the birthday of Pedro Menendez, and it has been advertised as a benefit for historic preservation in the city and for the Lightner Museum building in recent years.
The city turned production of the event over to the Casa Monica Hotel several years ago.
Shaver said in the past three years the contract for the Noche de Gala was done without the appropriate controls that would normally be in place, including compliance reviews.
“So there was clearly a gap there,” she said.
The event has not made money for the city since the Casa Monica Hotel took it over, Regan has said. The event usually did not make a profit for the city.
The final contract of concern was for Hyperscreens at the VIC, and that contract was done as a sole-source contract to meet a deadline and for other reasons, Regan said.
“So the question is, are there things we need to think about with our policy regarding single-source (contracts)?” Shaver asked.
Regan said he believes the three contracts are good examples of what the city can do better.
The contract concerns will likely come before the City Commission on April 13.
COMMENTS
Capt_Buzz 03/28/15 - 08:51 am 30Who doesn't review contracts for compliance?
You would think compliance is a primary part of the contract negotiation process. And what government agency doesn't send out a proposal request as part of the contract process? The city's evaluation of price and the value of that price (what is the bang for the bucks submitted) should be the primary requisite for a contract award. You don't award a government contract because the contractor knows somebody that knows somebody in the city administration.
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