No accountant for taste

Based on a tip I received, I recently made a public records request for invoices for a particular City of Alameda contractor for work done last fiscal year.  That contractor was Moreland Personnel Services.

According to the contract signed by Interim City Manager Ann Marie Gallant on September 22, 2009, there was a need in the City for temporary staffing in the form of an Accounting Manager for six weeks.   The billing rate for these temporary services was $101 per hour, with overtime billed at time and a half and anything over 12 hours a day would be double time.   All housing expenses would be reimbursed as well as travel and mileage.

So, for some reason, six weeks extended to eight months and the cost for this temporary employee is staggering.

First, before I get to the invoices, let me remind you of how contracts are supposed to work.   There is a limit to how much any one City employee can contract the City to spend.   The City Manager, or in this case, the Interim City Manager can contract up to $75,000 without City Council approval:

Contracts for personal or professional services involving specialized knowledge, including, without limitation, architects, engineers, or accountants, in the amount of seventy-five thousand dollars ($75,000.00) or more must be approved by Council. [emphasis added]

But for one Accounting Manager, between actual work, housing costs (hotel, rent, cable, electricity), and travel costs, the City of Alameda paid $173,207.37.

No, that’s not a typo.  $173,207.37.

Here’s the breakdown (the contract is the first two pages):

10/5 – 10/15	$8,119.48
10/16 – 10/30	$10.812.79
11/2 – 11/13	$9,264.57
11/16 – 11/25	$7,782.20
12/1 – 12/15	$10,731.96
12/16 – 12/30	$11,161.16
1/4 – 1/14	$11,856.66
1/18 – 1/24	$9,643.65
2/1 – 2/12	$9,694.84
2/16 – 2/26	$9,148.05
3/1 – 3/15	$12,579.37
3/16 – 3/31	$9,722.00
4/1 – 4/15	$10,331.82
4/16 – 4/30	$8,930.50
5/3 – 5/14	$11,943.13
5/17 – 5/28	$10,972.67
6/4 – 6/15	$8,270.52
6/16 – 6/23	$2,242.00

I guess what is really disturbing about this is that it well exceeds the amount that it would have cost the City just to a hire a full time staff person (or persons).   After all, the whole point of hiring a contractor is to reduce costs, not pay more for services.   For example, according to the State Controllers office, here are the salary costs for Finance Department employees for the City of Alameda:

Classification	Annual Salary Minimum	Annual Salary Maximum
Senior Account Clerk	$39,180	$55,130
Accounting Technician	$43,224	$60,802
Accountant II	$67,808	$82,420
Administrative Management Analyst	$77,376	$94,042
Financial Analyst & Supervising Accountant	$85,306	$103,688
Administrative Specialist II	$96,283	$142,230
Finance Director	$137,026	$166,556

In eight months, the City of Alameda paid more for a temporary “Accounting Manager” then what our full time Finance Director (if we had one) would have been paid.