South DaCola

Editorial Cartoonist from South Dakota

January 2012

SF City Council Sioux Falls

The City of SF Contract Dilemma

l3wis 6Comments
This was submitted to South DaCola;
Joe Kirby’s (Huether and administration) amendment does much more than contracts, frankly it would gut the council and reduce them to a rubber stamping committee — of which they are not far from now.

Having the mayor to be able to hire/fire council employees is a huge threat to internal audit and any staffer of the council.

The mayor has the authority to hire and fire his own employees — if that is what the Charter Revision wants to repeat in Charter, fine, BUT clearly state that this applies to employees of the mayor NOT the council.  (Again, the mayor/administration want to have internal audit BACK and under their thumbs. This is a MUCH bigger threat than just contracts.)

Second, the City purchased a software program (SIRE) in early 2011. It now runs the CC meetings and assists with agenda management, the software was purchased to address document imaging and managing those documents electronically. The City has the software to post ALL contracts/agreements online now (making them available to the public) — in fact this should have been accomplished last year. I think the City spent $100K for SIRE so it is ridiculous that this system is not up and running and providing more transparency to the public for contracts/agreements.

*CRC member De Knudson claimed during the last meeting that the software wasn’t available yet to post contracts, but that is not true.

Third, a number of departments and recipients of city contracts DO NOT want those contracts/agreements public. Why? Well if you are a conspiracy theorist, like myself, it would expose the inside deals the mayor provides to his special interests/friends.

A recent example is a contract between Mayor Munson and Council Member Beninga.  BTW, this contract was NOT on the City’s current document management system (called the AS400).  An internal auditor found the contract at Transit. The contract reduced the fee (which is specified in city ordinance) to the Center of Active Generations. (Beninga manages Center for Active Generations) Center for Active Generations riders were permitted to ride the City Transit system for a reduced fare (in violation of city ordinance) because of this contract between a mayor and council member. (See September Audit Committee’s report on Transit: Transitaudit)
Last, a number of circumspect contracts/agreements do not get posted on the current AS400 system. In a council working session last year ,the budget analyst when doing research for council, found a contract that the Landfill Supervisor signed, in violation of the city ordinance.  (The mayor is to sign all contracts and the clerk’s office attests to his signature — unless the mayor is out of town.)  These contracts were not in the AS400 but were found with the vendor of the city by the budget analyst. Contracts are important but the council staff needs to remain independent from the mayor/administration to do their job — especially internal audit.  The proposed revision to the Charter would jeopardize the independence of internal audit.
As you can see, the handling of contracts goes much, much deeper then a change by the CRC. And for the record, I am not revealing my source to anyone, besides, I am still unclear who it is – but it doesn’t matter, because I fact checked all of the submitted material and edited anything I could not verify.

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