BC has chance to improve contracted services

New owner, but same old Manchac Consulting Group: shielded by its political allies on the Bossier City Council, it continues to enjoy privileged status and an ever-deeper reach into Bossier City taxpayers’ pocketbooks that an embattled Council majority bloc wants to impose without considering any other options.

The firm that has worked on Bossier City projects since 2010 and which took over public works through a formal public-private partnership agreement in 2016 a couple of months ago was bought out by Waggoner Engineering but remains as a wholly-owned subsidiary. Waggoner is based in Jackson, MS but for many years has had a Louisiana presence in Baton Rouge where Manchac is located. It and its original owner and founder Joe Waggoner and his affiliated companies have been active in donations to Louisiana politicians of both parties (although more often Democrats) for statewide, legislative, and local offices, but have concentrated local candidate giving in New Orleans and Baton Rouge.

This may explain the more aggressive search for business Manchac recently has undertaken. As the merger was being negotiated, it offered its services to the Cypress Black Bayou Recreation and Water Conservation District, and appears actively to be searching for other opportunities.

It certainly wants to expand its footprint in Bossier City. Before the Council this week came an item to increase its monthly fee by $26,000 a month to $195,000, or a 50 percent boost since the last no-bid contract that took effect Jun. 1, 2021 that is to last to May 31, 2024, as approved by the Council on May 17, 2021, just prior to new councilors coming on board and a change in mayoral administrations. The reason given in the documentation attached to the ordinance was to take on unspecified engineering tasks.

Yet the proposed ordinance did more than that. It also sought to extend the entire agreement through May 31, 2028. This directly violates the charter ordinance, where Section 2-161 limits the maximum duration of the contract to three years. Despite that, upon a general query about the legality of the agenda item in the first place – because Mayor Tommy Chandler did not indicate that he had, and testified as such, reviewed the item as required by procedure (which utilized an old form within the agenda packet given to councilors, unlike the others) – and that Republican Councilor Chris Smith (again) queried whether outsourcing the city engineer post didn’t violate the charter as well – City Attorney Charles Jacobs opined the item was legal for consideration.

Regardless of whether the four-year length violated the charter ordinance, the item represented distinctly different treatment from that of the 2021 renewal. Then, a number of modifications were made to the original agreement, many of which unwound some side agreements accumulated over the years, but adding two new ones which significantly limit the city’s discretion in ending the deal: removal of the city’s ability to exit at any time without cause and a trigger for automatic renewal for three years if no contrary action to that is taken prior to 120 days of contract end. That means unless the Council does something different, on Jan. 22, 2024 the deal automatically rolls over for another three years with the same duties at the last approved rate.

That 120 days makes an earlier demand for passage, introduced by Democrat Councilor Bubba Williams, logical if you want to jack up the rate and extend the term. But doing it now – and apparently at the last minute prior to a meeting, as the discussion revealed that led Chandler to ask for a delay – also removes any leeway for the city to do what it should have in the past for a commitment approaching eight figures (if at four years; the amount for three would be just over $7 million): send the deal out for competitive bidding.

GOP Councilor David Montgomery fondly likes to have publicized calculated cost savings from going with Manchac over government provision. But that not only misses but also distracts from the real issue: savings could be greater under another operator, but the city won’t find out unless it puts the deal up for bids. And Manchac’s service could have been much better; for example, Manchac and its designated point man who technically serves in the several city posts over which it has responsibility Ben Rauschenbach botched being able to keep Shed Road crossing over railroad tracks, either through incompetence or indifference. And only three weeks before, Rauschenbach publicly issued mea culpas for incorrectly underestimating costs related to the Walter O. Bigby Carriageway completion, which has run well over budget.

And if it wasn’t on Republican Councilor Brian Hammons’ mind, the continuation of this item called for by him with Smith’s second certainly lends itself to the possibility of bidding. Hammons asked for postponement of the matter until the Jan. 2 meeting and, in a rare victory for reform forces on the Council, he got it. Perhaps not surprisingly, no party Councilor Jeff Darby, who long has been a critic of Manchac’s privileged position, voted with them, but very surprisingly rookie GOP Councilor Vince Maggio ignored Montgomery’s contention that two weeks would present plenty of time to review the matter and, against type, fell in with Darby and the two other newcomers to vote for it, leaving graybeards Republican Councilor Jeff Free, Montgomery, and Williams on the losing side.

As a result, the city has almost two months to bid out the business and weeks to analyze it. (Manchac of course can participate, and may have the edge given its familiarity with what needs doing.) Realistically, this is enough time to go through a process obtaining well-constructed proposals and rating them, hiring an outside firm not involved in the bidding to evaluate, and then by the Jan. 16 meeting of the Council it could vote to award. As a backup plan, councilors could continue the item now on the Jan. 2 calendar two weeks more in case no satisfactory bid comes in. They even could combine the two: say another operator has a bid below $195,000 but above the current $169,000; in that case, the city wouldn’t make an award but not redo the contract and let it roll over at the current cost, leaving it in Manchac’s court whether to accept.

Chandler doesn’t need to leave it just at vetting Manchac’s increase without adding any real duties over the next two weeks. He needs to set the wheels in motion immediately to bid out the business. Only then will Bossier Citians know that they truly are getting the best deal at the best price possible.