In the past year or so, about 80 percent of city contracts with athletic associations that help run area parks expired.
It happened without the knowledge of the city’s Parks and Recreation Department, said City Council member Lori Boyer. No replacements had been named because the contracts hadn’t been bid out. Council ended up authorizing agreements with the associations to continue to use, manage and maintain those parks for several months.
Another time, money awarded to the city from the U.S. Housing and Urban Development expired. Boyer said if that deadline and information was available, council members would know it needed to be used accordingly and would have been.
The city’s management of contracts has weaknesses. Terms and conditions aren’t always enforced — contractors are paid without meeting their end of the deal, services run delinquent without timely repercussions. Others, like those of the athletic associations, just expire and end up being extended.
Sam Mousa, Mayor Lenny Curry’s chief administrative officer, sees all this. He attributes it not to purposeful wrongdoing, but more a lack of training. The city, he said, doesn’t have a formal contract management process in place.
The city’s Taxation, Revenue, Utilization and Expenditures commission, also known as TRUE, identified such weaknesses in a 2011 report used by Boyer’s Task Force on Consolidation last year. One of the consolidation group’s recommendations about contracts has been implemented: the oversight agents are now explicitly stated in contracts and legislation.
Mousa also served on that commission and said the management issues are better now than they have been the past several years, but more work will be done.
“It’s important and we need to do it,” he said. “The mayor would want this done.”
Council member Tommy Hazouri, Boyer and Mousa sat down Wednesday to hash out the myriad issues surrounding contracts, starting a conversation Hazouri hopes will bring overall change in the coming months.
In addition to management, that includes modernization and transparency — a point Hazouri is especially keen on.
Cities like Ocala and Evanston, Ill., and Florida Chief Financial Officer Jeff Atwater do a better job Hazouri said. Why shouldn’t Jacksonville?
“We ought to have accessibility and transparency as best we can,” Hazouri said.
It wouldn’t affect just the public, though. For example, Boyer wanted to review noise complaints at Metropolitan Park, an issue during the spring of 2013. She wanted to see the original grants for the venue, but they weren’t exactly the easiest to find. Parks rolled out four carts full of files — not exactly the easiest method, but ultimately the file was there.
Mousa said he wants to time to come up with a game plan on how to handle the many facets of contracts — accessibility and management.
Hazouri hopes to see improvement in the next couple of months.
Any potential costs aren’t yet known. There’s a possibility the software the city has can help. Hazouri said if that’s not the case, he’d be OK with spending to ensure a better process — one with less hassle and better results.
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