March 23, 2008

City Manager Out of Control with Consultant Spending

(Consultants caught click here, and follow down the page. )

Hopefully, by now the City of Winter Springs Commission has realized that the performance of its consultant on the fire assessment fee has been sub par and pure poppycock.   For the $116,000 consultant fee, citizens have gotten little return on their investment from Government Services Group (GSG).

In fact, citizens got more information from one private citizen, Ron Ligthart, who was paid NOTHING, but expertly managed to provide the commission with a timely impact study of the fee.   GSG never provided an impact study. Ligthart proved regardless of how you charge the fee, citizens and business property owners will be negatively impacted by the fire fee and that the City would have everything to gain with a sure fire flow of revenue.   It is no wonder that Mayor Bush stifled Ligthart’s public input time and time again.   The TRUTH hurts.   And Mayor Bush and the City Manager hate being confronted with the truth.

But what is disturbing about the long relationship between GSG and the City Manager, going back to the manager’s South Florida days, is the fact that every contract that GSG has be awarded by the city since 1997 has not been put out for competitive bidding.   See the picture below for a list of all the no-bid contracts that GSG has “won” from old friend Ron McLemore.    Those non-bid contracts total well over $170,000.

And, these are just the GSG contracts we know about, who knows how many GSG contracts are not posted on the city’s website for public viewing, like the contract between GSG and the City for the fire fee assessment study.   Do you see that listed on the picture?   No.   Why?   Because if you did, you would see that the no-bid contracts swell well over $285,000 if you add in the fire service consultant fee for GSG. And who cooks up all this unchecked, uncontrolled insiders’ club mentality?   McLemore. 

GSG is just ONE example of the MANY no-bid contracts that McLemore enters into with companies and personal friends.   And what is highly suspicious is the biggest benefactor of the city’s no-bid contracts is SRI lead by Bill Starmer, which only one of those contracts is posted on the city clerk’s Contracts document list on the web.    Why?    Because the list would go on for pages and pages.   And McLemore does NOT want citizens to put two and two together and see just how much that one company has made off taxpayers.

Another person who has had a relationship with GSG in City Hall on other fee revenue programs like the TLBD and the Oak Forest Wall tax district has been mysteriously missing from public hearings on the fire service fee.   And that is the Finance Director Michelle Greco.    Why is Greco missing or not speaking on behalf of the city in regards to the fire assessment fee with all her expertise?    Take a look at her department’s job description below.

After reading the Finance Department’s objective, wouldn’t you expect the finance director -- who knows the city budget better than anyone, who knows revenue sources better than anyone, who knows the tax base better than anyone – to be the person facing the public?   Well of course you would, but McLemore has strategically kept her in the background.   Why?   Because he doesn’t want her giving her professional opinion to the commission and she is not willing to put her CPA license on the line and lie for the city manager on public record.   The same goes for the city’s budget analyst who is also a licensed CPA.

Now of course, the General Services Director could lie on behalf of McLemore as much as he had to do for his boss because he has no professional license to lose.   Why would the person who leads the Purchasing and Human Resources department be the public face on the fire assessment fee?   Take a look at the General Service Department’s objective description:

Wouldn’t you bypass a finance or budget analyst director to get the opinion of the director of purchasing and human resources when you want to analyze fire service or its budget for revenue generation?

Another point of interest is the fact that up until the fire service fee, Finance Director Michelle Greco was the point of contact for the city when dealing with GSG on its other revenue generating contracts.   Here is one of those no bid contracts from November 2006 as evidence.   Take note of who GSG addresses the letter to and take note of the GSG motto on the top right-hand side of the page.  This is what GSG is all about, grubbing for money for governments:

This whole matter of the fire service fee is yet another prime example of City Manager Ron McLemore’s total incompetence.   He is incapable of performing his duties, let alone using the right staff resource for the right job or issue.   He is totally dependent upon consultants to bolster his agendas and spending ways, and there are absolutely no internal controls in place to demand that he bid out for those consultant contracts.    McLemore’s appetite for spending is voracious, but he has a total inability to negotiate contracts to get the best value for service or to keep the best firefighters that Seminole County has in the Winter Springs Professional Firefighters.   McLemore’s performance on the job, when he decides to show up, is in a word abysmal.

Isn’t it time the commission to cut its ties with this sidewinder city manager and bring in someone who can do the job more efficiently, truthfully, and at a much, much cheaper price?   The commission deserves better, the city staff deserve better, and most of all citizens deserve better.