DeKalb County recently released a consultant’s study on how it can improve its purchasing department, which has been at the center of most of the corruption allegations in the county. The study made 73 recommendations that focus on better transparency and improving the contracting process. Among them:
1. Establish leadership expectations and performances. The department has won five National Purchasing Institute’s Achievement in Excellence awards because of best practice elements in place, but they are not used.
2. Post weekly reports on the county’s intranet on the status of each contract in the department. The study found departments in need of services or products were often uninformed of changes in their contracts that could delay service or require new bids.
3. Use updated software to track contract progress and generate regular reports. The study found DeKalb’s purchasing process relies mostly on paper documents, not computer software that can be easily access by county workers in-house and posted online for the public.
4. Develop criteria to identify when technical review of bids should be outsourced. This will increase transparency and expertise now not required.
A new study lays bare the problems plaguing DeKalb County’s purchasing department: its outdated systems and lack of leadership and transparency have made the county inept and inefficient at spending taxpayer dollars.
And, with government contracts at the center of nearly every scandal to hit DeKalb in the past year, those problems exist on top of what a special grand jury report says is DeKalb’s inability to detect and prevent corruption in purchasing. That reputation already has been the focus of yet another study, one that found the perception of bad government and inefficiency in issuing permits is a hurdle to attracting new development.
“Even if we have the policies, it’s clear we’re not following them. And that’s the thing getting us into a lot of trouble,” Commissioner Jeff Rader said. “This is important work, and it’s certainly complicated work. But it’s not rocket science. We can do better.”
The new study, obtained exclusively by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution through the state’s Open Records Act, was conducted by consulting firm Management Partners. The study is part of the county’s reaction to the scathing special grand jury report released last August. The grand jury report concluded that DeKalb’s policies and structure make it ripe for corruption and recommended sweeping changes.
DeKalb’s CEO form of government gives the top elected official nearly full power over contracts on everything from toilet paper in county offices to multi-million dollar sewer projects.
Accusations of abuse of that system led to the 14-count indictment against suspended CEO Burrell Ellis. Ellis, who is accused of shaking down county vendors for campaign cash and punishing those who did not give, is scheduled to head to trial in September.
The report does not specifically address the ongoing corruption scandal in DeKalb. But all of the 73 recommendations center on increasing transparency and improving management to change what the report calls a “culture of protectionism” in the department.
“Anyone ought to be able to ask about any purchase at any time and know where it is,” said Kevin Knutson, the regional vice president of Management Partners. “That is missing here.”
One of the biggest challenges, and best opportunities for abuse, is the actual system DeKalb uses when finding the vendors for government services.
Much of DeKalb’s process – from advertising for bidders, to the review and grading process of responding firms, to the signed contracts – is done on paper.
That keeps the county from adopting such common practices as allowing online registration and bidding for vendors and public review and searches of contracts. Such “electronic commerce” increases transparency and, therefore, builds trust in the system, the study said.
It also would speed up how government works. By using paper instead of computer software, DeKalb takes nearly a year, 348 days on average, to sign a contract once it calls for bids, according to the study. Cobb takes 42 days, while Gwinnett hits the industry standard at 120 days.
DeKalb’s inefficiency also keeps individual workers, many of whom excel at their job, oblivious to the next step in the process or the overall goal, the study found.
The special grand jury found that the lack of transparency that results could open the door for questionable behavior, such as what two DeKalb workers described in sworn testimony last year. In that testimony, purchasing director Kelvin Walton admitted that he broke the law when he did not pay a county vendor who removed a tree from his back yard.
Nina Hall, Ellis’ former secretary, testified that she asked Walton for financial help because she was going through a difficult time and she believes he funneled money from at least two county vendors to her.
Interim CEO Lee May put Walton and Hall on paid leave last month, after a resident filed an ethics complaint against them demanding their removal. Viola Davis’ complaint is still pending.
Scott Callan, the former purchasing director in Gwinnett, took over the purchasing department on Monday.
He is using the consultant’s study as a guidebook to overhaul the office.
The main job of his six-month tenure will be to push for computer upgrades to fully automate – and make public – the purchasing process. He also plans to reach out to the business community in an effort to attract more bids – and hopefully lower prices.
“We won’t change the impression of DeKalb County procurement overnight, but we can lay the foundation,” said Callan, who will earn $72,960 for his six-month interim role. “We have to get the right environment, training and processes in place and go from there.”
Davis is unconvinced the county will take the study, and needed work, seriously.
She noted that a draft of the $79,900 study was available in January, though it was not made public until this week. And, she said, it still falls short of what she’s called for — for a complete audit of the purchasing department’s contracts.
“Anything less than an audit and a federal investigation, we will view as a cover-up,” Davis said. “Going in and examining the process problems is a start, but when you have indictments out there, you need to do a lot more than that to clean that department up.”
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