Portland city managers can now approve most six-figure consulting contracts without bringing the spending proposals before the City Council, where commissioners and the public can weigh in.
The council unanimously voted Thursday to increase the value of contracts for expert services that require council approval from $100,000 to $500,000. This means 95 contracts—or more than $9.5 million worth of deals—approved by the city council in the last 17 months would have been selected without council oversight.
Mayor Ted Wheeler acknowledged there were "trade-offs" between public transparency and increasing the efficiency of the bureau projects when it came to accepting this policy change.
"If I'm sitting in the audience, I'm still wondering 'what about transparency?'" he said before voting yes on the policy.
Commissioner Nick Fish also pressed on the issue of transparency. He asked if the contracts could be found at a central location on the city's website. Interim Chief Procurement Officer Larry Pelatt said all contract solicitations are online. Chief Financial Officer Ken Rust noted that there are already a lot of contracts that don't come to council at all, saying "if you think it's difficult to get that information, it's not different from what we're proposing."
"I still think there needs to be a centralized place where people can go to find this," Fish said. "Otherwise we're requiring people to jump through a lot of hoops to find information."
It's not clear if that will happen. Fish did not formally introduce an amendment that would create a centralized tracking system before voting to approve the policy change. Procurement officials didn't agree to heed Fish's request.
Although Wheeler noted the transparency questions highlighted in an Oregonian/OregonLive story Wednesday, he made clear that he supports the oversight change that his office brought forward Thursday.
He emphasized his desire to speed up bureaucratic processes and the criticism he's received, reported in a Willamette Week story Wednesday, for not moving quickly enough to address Portland's housing crisis.
"You'll see I'm being excoriated broadly for being too slow to respond to the housing crisis," Wheeler said. "This is a way to speed things up"
Saltzman and Eudaly also supported the change. Commissioner Amanda Fritz did not vote. She is visiting her mother in England until Aug. 1.
Pegged as a pilot program, the procurement officer's increased signing authority will last through December 2018.
The proposal would also increase the value of public improvement and construction contracts, as well as goods and services contracts, the procurement officer could execute without council approval from $500,000 to $1 million.
Jen Clodius, city finance office spokeswoman, said the change will help "improve efficiency in getting infrastructure projects from 'Bid' to 'Notice to Proceed' more quickly."
When asked how raising the threshold for council review of consulting projects would help increase construction project efficiency, Clodius noted that it takes two months to get an ordinance through council.
Three members of the public testified against the policy change Thursday, saying that increasing the value of contracts that can be decided without the council's approval diminishes public trust.
"When standards fall, so does community trust," Craig Rogers said during public comment.
--Jessica Floum
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