Good for Sedgwick County Commissioner Gwen Welshimer for watchdogging how much the county spends on consultants. Welshimer received a report this week on the consultants the county hired the past two years. There weren’t big red flags among the 24 consultants listed or the nearly $542,000 spent. But the county and city have seemed consultant-happy in recent years, so the scrutiny is justified to make sure the spending really is needed. One thing to evaluate: Have the consultants’ recommendations been implemented and made a positive difference, or have their reports mostly gathered dust on shelves?
Posted by Phillip Brownlee
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11 Comments
Somebody once defined a “consultant” as somebody who knows a thousand ways to make love but doesn’t know any girls.
Consultants thrive, both in government and corporations, to help decision-makers dodge responsibility for their actions. If a project fails or a decision backfires, they can always blame the consultants.
There is a lot of room for shady dealings when it comes to consulting.
And the kicker is that many of the jobs these folks are hired to do - can be done by citizen-based committees.
Sure, an engineer is likely needed when making the final decisions about traffic flow, street design, and building integrity, but NOT at the initial stages, and NOT for simple things like monitoring issues.
Waste in government is astronomical. A couple of months ago, I noticed on an industrial auction that the City of Wichita was selling around 4,000 sq ft of granite slabbing. The bidding, including myself, was at a mere $4,000. I had every intention of buying that granite, but I wondered why the City would sell it on a little-known auction when they could advertise it outright. It’s value was over $100,000.
Before the bidding closed, someone figured out the value and pulled the item off. The auction company informed me that the City didn’t know what it was selling and (luckily, for them) someone spotted it and told them they were making a mistake.
Easy come, easy go, as far as I was concerned - but it illustrates the lack of financial oversight in government.
Empower citizens to sit on committees that study everything from traffic patterns to opinion polls. Not everything needs a professional consultant from the get-go and money could be saved by utilizing the City’s greatest resource - willing citizens - at the initial levels.
But that’s too simple.
It would be interesting to see if any of the consulting projects went to campaign contributors, friends or family members of commissioners, council members or senior staff officers. For that matter it would be interesting to see if there are any patronage ties between city officials and major city contractors. Isn’t there an oversight body / committee that monitors these type of things?
Interesting quote:
“There is a lot of room for shady dealings when it comes to consulting.”
Does anyone have any factual proof of that sentiment? Or is it just “common knowledge” that anything having to do with a consultant is inherently bad?
If the City/County needs an expert opinion on structural loads, for example, who should they contact? A local business that makes money from designing such loads? I would be suspect of anything from a non-impartial source.
Does the City/County have experts in every field? Do we WANT them to hire experts in every conceivable field whose expertise would be needed say once every 15 years? Talk about a bloated payroll.
Anytime the word “consultant” is used lately, it appears to be synonymous with waste or crime or back door dealing. Does ANYONE have any proof at all of such? Is this a witch hunt for non-existent witches?
No, I am not a consultant and don’t know any personally. I am just really curious about this constant attack on a profession that can serve a valuable purpose of saving taxpayer money.
Any concrete, factual proof? Or is it like so many other things on this blog…just a mindless attack based on heresay, inuendo and prejudicial thinking?
Facts, anyone?
Facts - Yes — Chicago has a long history of patronage and rewarding of family, contibutors aqnd friends with lucrative city contracts. So, some one needs to keep a critical eye on how tax money is spent. I would like to bid for the consulting job to do that —–
Correction….I meant verifiable problems with consultants here in Wichita.
Lousisiana has a history of corruption in politics..does that mean that every elected official in history is a crook?
“Have the consultants’ recommendations been implemented and made a positive difference, or have their reports mostly gathered dust on shelves?”
Mr. Brownlee, that sounds like a question for a newspaper to investigate and report on!
I reviewed the list of consultants and the amounts paid to them and nothing seems unreasonable.$521K over two years by a city the size of Wichita?If anything, the city should be spending more money on consultants. Sometimes you do get what you pay for. (arena project studies anyone?)
The number seems a bit low, considering how every time you turn around Wichita is hiring another consultant, usually to reinforce a bad decision. How many consultants have been hired to cover any one specific situation? For Wichita, they hire one, then do not like his/her answer, so they keep hiring until they find one that agrees with what they wanted.
The County may have only spent $500K+ in two years, but the city spent over $1.5M last year alone, according to the link.
brian,
The arena consultant study revealed some major issues, which Wichita/Sedgwick County and the local media ignored.
1) It recommended the arena needed to be at least 20,000 seats to attract the bigger names.
2) Even at 20,000+ seats, the Wichita market would still not draw the bigger names.
The lack of adequate parking and other amenities have been similarly glossed over the city/county. I saw the huge number of parking spaces supposedly available, but that does not take into actual availability or times when Century II (worse when the Hyatt is also doing something as well) is overflowing from its own events.
The City conveniently delayed showing the expansion plans for Century II.
The local media was so busy drooling over the increased ad revenues, they did not mention or delayed mentioning things like the Ice Rink fiasco.