Orange County Grand Jury
• 2002-2003
• Agency Response
Questionable Contract Management*
⚠️ Translation Notice: This content has been automatically translated. The original English text is the official version. Translation may contain errors.
⚠️ Este contenido ha sido traducido automáticamente. El texto original en inglés es la versión oficial. La traducción puede contener errores.
Note: Missing finding numbers detected: F4
Findings and Recommendations 4 findings
F1
The County Executive Officer investigate the management of the consultant contract, and if in fact mismanagement did occur, County Executive Officer to consider appropriate action. Response: The recommendation will be implemented. Explanation: The County Executive Officer directed the County Purchasing Agent to evaluate the facts related to the contract modifications. In addition, Internal Audit conducted an independent review of the contract files and the contracting process. The County Executive Officer will review the facts and appropriate action will be taken if the contract was mismanaged.
Related Recommendations (1)
R1
The County Executive Officer investigate the management of the consultant contract, and if in fact mismanagement did occur, County Executive Officer to consider appropriate action. Response: The recommendation will be implemented. Explanation: The County Executive Officer directed the County Purchasing Agent to evaluate the facts related to the contract modifications. In addition, Internal Audit conducted an independent review of the contract files and the contracting process. The County Executive Officer will review the facts and appropriate action will be taken if the contract was mismanaged.
F2
The CEO Office of Human Resources increased the billing rates up to 35% on the consultant contract without prior approval by the Orange County Board of Supervisors. Response: Agree with the finding Explanation: The CEO Office of Human Resources authorized a billing rate increase orally to the consultant, and payments were made to the consultant for services billed at the increased billing rates without prior approval by the Board of Supervisors on December 7, 1999.
Related Recommendations (1)
R2
The Orange County Board of Supervisors appoint a committee of senior financial and purchasing personnel to review contracts approved by the Board of Supervisors for the past three years to determine if other contracts have exceeded the cost originally approved by the Board and were then returned to the Board for retroactive approval of the increased contract costs. Response: The recommendation will not be implemented as it is not warranted. Explanation: Review of the large amount of data would be very costly in terms of administrative time. Appropriate procedures will be developed, as noted in
F3
The CEO Office of Human Resources made a significant change of scope in the consultant contract, but did not rebid the contract for the new services. Response: Disagree partially with the finding Explanation: The CEO Office of Human Resources requested Board of Supervisors authorization to modify the original contract. The Board of Supervisors approved a modification to the contract, which included the new services, prior to the issuance of a contract modification or payment to the consultant for the new services. The CEO Office of Human Resources requested and received Board approval of this modification less than one week prior to the CEO Office of Human Resources requesting the contract modification from CEO/Purchasing, precluding the possibility of a "rebid" process. CEO Office of Human Resources added an additional project to the consultant 4. contract (Human Resources Visioning Project) without competitive bidding or sole source justification. Response: Disagree partially with the finding Explanation: As with 3, above, the CEO Office of Human Resources requested Board of Supervisors authorization to modify the original contract to add an . . Response: The recommendation will be implemented. Explanation: Per the recommended action, the Board of Supervisors directs the County Purchasing Agent to develop a Board policy related to contract overruns and return to the Board of Supervisors in 90 days for approval and to incorporate the policy into the County of Orange Contract Policy Manual. . 1 4 4 additional project to be performed by the consultant. The Board of Supervisors approved a modification to the contract, which included the new project, prior to the issuance of a contract modification or payment to the consultant for the new project. The CEO Office of Human Resources requested a contract modification, without sole source justification, from CEO/Purchasing less than one week prior to requesting and receiving Board approval of the contract modification, precluding the possibility of a competitive process.
Related Recommendations (1)
R3
The Orange County Board of Supervisors implement procedures to prevent future occurrences if the committee finds significant overruns on other contracts.
F5
Orange County Board of Supervisors retroactively approved the unauthorized expenditures, increased billing rates and changed the scope in the consultant contract on December 7, 1999. Response: Agree with the finding Explanation: Upon approval by the Board of Supervisors on December 7, 1999, the expenditures, increased billing rates, and changes in the scope of work were authorized, and the contract was so modified.
No recommendations for this finding
* This report's PDF did not contain easily extractable text and required Optical Character Recognition (OCR) for analysis. There may be minor errors in the extracted findings and recommendations due to OCR limitations with scanned documents.