It was mentioned at a previous Dewey Beach town hall meeting that the town needed Human Resources (HR) help such as reviewing employee manuals and developing job descriptions. Having attained a CFA, CPA, MBA, master's in industrial relations and three HR certifications: the SHRM-SCPS, PHR, and SPHR (the highest HR certification), I offered to volunteer my time for free to the town toward their HR issues.
However, I never received a response.
At Saturday's Dewey Beach town meeting, the town discussed an outsourcing proposal from Lyons Companies HCM. One qualification was that they knew the owner, David Lyons. In comparison with me, they had inferior qualifications. Then factor in $125/hour vs. free.
At the meeting I asked the commissioners to open up the contract to a public Request For Proposal posted in the Cape Gazette and with the local HR group since this would be a continuing relationship and let other parties bid (I would not be participating; I only want a public competitive process). At worst, the town could use the RFP to extract a better price from the "favored" outsourcer. I stated at the meeting that the price the town is paying is somewhere between high and crazy. It was also announced during the meeting that Dewey Beach is looking to outsource more in the future. Will these be no-bid jobs as well?
Open competitive bidding makes for good government. It ensures towns get a fair-value price for the service they are purchasing and prevents the risk that taxpayer dollars are misused.
I already currently volunteer as the chair of the Dewey Beach Investment Committee. When the committee was created, Dewey had no investment policy and was invested in a portfolio of mostly random high-front-loaded fee funds that were even in the wrong share class (meaning even higher fees). Worst, this was the result of a previous mayor who transferred the town's investment funds to his firm, and then handed it off to someone as a favor.
The newly created investment committee met on many vacation days taken from work and football weekends, sacrificing time with family and friends to volunteer their services to the town. First we worked several months on an investment policy. We then worked for another few months to get an RFP out, posted publicly in the Cape Gazette which spread to financial publications looking for an investment manager.
We had 14 respondents coming from a diverse area including Delaware, Maryland, New Jersey and Pennsylvania. After filtering out for suitability reasons, the committee interviewed the remaining seven. During the interview process, the various respondents provided feedback which gave the committee valuable insight on getting everything implemented. The committee sent follow-up questions which also helped extract better pricing for the town.
After having our selection of investment manager and custodian (a safeguard we implemented) unanimously confirmed by the commissioners, we spent another year perfecting the policy, and continue to monitor the $4.4 million portfolio to this day.
Holding together the committee has not been easy because of politics. For example, one committee member wrote a letter saying he (as a Dewey citizen) was against the town's $875,000 purchase of land for a new town hall. I then received calls from a commissioner to potentially remove him from the committee. Yet here was this volunteer, doing a great job for this committee, even making a special trip to make a meeting while his wife was sick.
There are other examples, and I'm sure this letter won't help me, but it's about doing what's right. President Obama said it best that no-bid contracts "create a risk that taxpayer funds will be spent on contracts that are wasteful, inefficient, are subject to misuse, or otherwise not designed to serve the interests of the .. government or the interests of the .. taxpayer."
Ironically, during the later part of the town meeting, the commissioners discussed having achievements for re-election. This no-bid job selection would not be an achievement, but headed backward. If the commissioners undo this old boys maneuver and hold an open public RFP for this and future outsourcing needs, it would go a long way to preventing corruption and ensuring everything is done in the public eye.
That would be a significant achievement.
David Moskowitz
Dewey Beach
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