Corbin Report

CITY OF HARTFORD INTERDEPARTMENTAL MEMORANDUM Date: To:

April 28,2009 Mayor Perez

From:

H. Patrick Campbell, Chief Auditor

Telephone:

757-9951

Subject:

Special Review of Department of Public Works Professional Service Contracts

At your request we performed a special review of Department of Public Works professional services contracts. The purpose of our review was to determine if political lobbying or liaison services have been solicited through or provided under any Department of Public Works professional service contracts. Background It recently came to light that Department of Public Works management had procured political liaison and other services through a purchase order with Richard L. Moffitt & Associates, P.C. (RLMA). Further reviews of this arrangement disclosed that although the purchase order was with RLMA lobbying services were to be provided by a third party the Ferguson Group. The original purchase order with RLMA totaled $7,000. This was later increased by a change order totaling $24,000. The change order was to cover the cost of lobbying services to be provided by the Ferguson Group through RLMA. Both the original purchase order and the change order with RLMA were cancelled after the arrangement between RLMA and the Ferguson Group was discovered. At the time of our review the City has paid RLMA $6,850 of the original $7,000 purchase order. Review Results With the exception of the situation noted above with RLMA, we found no evidence to support that any additional political lobbying or liaison services were either solicited through or provided under any other Department of Public Works professional service contracts. It should be noted however, that the Department of Public Works did not have a comprehensive list of all active professional service contracts. This made it difficult to determine how many professional service contracts were in effect at the time of our review. In addition there were numerous purchase orders associated with each professional service contract. Due to these constraints we performed reviews of a representative sample of professional service contract purchase orders and charges that either we identified or were brought to our attention by Department of Public Works employees. Although it may appear, based on the results of our review, that the situation with RLMA was an isolated incident we cannot say with certainty that no additional political lobbying

or liaison services were either solicited through or provided under any other Department of Public Works professional service contracts that we were not aware of and did not test. Scope of Work Performed We performed the following reviews. 1. Reviewed 28 charges totaling more than $77,600 made to the "Other Technical and Professional Service" account during the nine months ended March 31, 2009. This represents about 38% of the $199,539 charged to this account during this period. 2. Reviewed files for 12 professional services contracts. This included but was not limited to reviews of 25 purchase orders totaling more than $5.8 million and/or other related documentation. 3. Interviewed J. McGrane to determine if he was aware of any other political lobbying or liaison services solicited through or provided under any other Department of Public Works professional service contracts. J. McGrane indicated that he was not aware of any other political lobbying or liaison services solicited through or provided under any other Department of Public Works professional service contracts.

copy: Internal Audit Commission Members