Dublin City manager's new guidelines for independent contractors and consultants

CITY MANAGER’S STATEMENT ON CONTRACT SERVICES IN THE CITY OF DUBLIN Contract services have been the cornerstone of the City of Dublin’s operations since its incorporation in 1982. It has allowed the City to efficiently and cost-effectively staff its operations over the past 34 years to help meet the needs of the community.

The City’s current financial position bears this out.

The City has, at last count, dozens of contracts totaling over $34 million in FY 15-16. In addition to the large contracts with the Alameda County Sheriff’s Office, Alameda County Fire Department and MCE (parks, facilities and street maintenance services), the City maintains dozens of contracts ranging from janitorial to plan check services. The City also works with several firms that provide on-call services to augment staff in land development.

On-call contract services are and will remain strategically important in the delivery of services in the City. Recently, one of the City’s long-term, on-call consulting firms received media and community attention regarding its daily and annual hours billed. It should be noted that consultant work performed was at the direction of the City and that I believe the hours billed are reasonable given the work that the City has asked of this consulting firm over the last several years. I also believe that the City received good value for what it has paid to the consulting firm. However, I am concerned about some of the billing practices that led to the media attention, and I have conducted a thorough review of the City’s contracting processes. From that review, I have advised the City Council of six changes to our current practices that I will be instituting: 1. On-call City consulting firms will now be required to provide two measures of hourly billing. They will be required to submit daily logs of total hours worked by each individual performing service under the consultant contract, and they will also be required to log hours by City project assignment. This change will provide the necessary cross-check for staff to ensure hours will not be aggregated on a single day for work conducted over multiple days.

2. All on-call consulting firms that serve as staff augmentation for development services will be deemed to be “consultants” under the Political Reform Act and required to file Form 700s. In addition, I have directed the City Attorney's Office to review all of the City’s consulting contracts to determine whether any additional individuals would be considered “consultants” under the Political Reform Act and required to file Form 700s.

3. Contractors working for an on-call consulting firm shall work no more than 2,000 hours in a fiscal year. In certain circumstances, I would approve a small variance if a project and/or service demands necessitate it.

4. Currently, contract consultant service agreements don’t address the increments of time in which the firm’s time is billed; the practices among consulting firms have varied. Moving forward, the City shall require consulting firms to bill in either tenths of hours or quarter hours.

5. All Requests for Proposals for contract consulting services will include a section that will identify what public and private clients the consultant is serving at that time (and in what communities they are doing that work). City Staff shall include that list as an attachment to any contract consultant services agreement when it is considered by the City Council.

6. While the City retains the right to terminate any on-call consultant agreement, the contracts do not currently include a provision for a “date certain” termination of the agreement. Moving forward, all new contracts with the City of Dublin shall include this provision.

It is my belief these changes will help to further strengthen the City’s solid reputation for strong fiscal management and will address the concerns raised by members of the public and the media. In addition to these administrative changes, upcoming Council meetings will include discussions on Consultant and Professional Services contracts and the City’s Conflict of Interest Ordinance.

For questions or more information, please email city.manager@dublin.ca.gov.