County Council passed legislation on April 26, 2001, prime sponsored by Councilman Dale Miller, to create the Cuyahoga County Board of Control to help review contracts and other financial documents.
The Board of Control will consist of the County Executive, the County's Fiscal Officer, the Director of Public Works, the Director of Procurement and Diversity, and three members of County Council.
Under the ordinance, the County Council will review and have to approve all proposed contracts for more than $500,000. Contracts for more than $100,000 up to $500,000 will have to be reviewed and approved by the Board of Control. Contracts for $100,000 will be reviewed and approved through the County Executive's departmental process. All contracts, regardless of amount will have to be consistent with the County's budget, which is adopted annually.
"The reason for having a Board of Control is to enable the County Council to focus its oversight on the largest and most important projects, while providing some Council oversight through the Board of Control on the next largest group of contracts. County Council will not do its best work trying to individually review each of the thousand or more contracts that the County enters into annually." Councilman Miller stated.
The ordinance also provides that contracts will be awarded to the "lowest and best" bidder, and provides guidance on the determination of lowest and best. "Lowest" by itself will not be to our advantage if the quality of work is not good. The standards in the ordinance enable the County to consider factors such as experience, quality of past performance, and training levels of the workforce in addition to price in determining the best bid.
The ordinance also provides for Board of Control oversight of change orders to contracts, to prevent costly overruns, such as occurred in the Justice Center project. The provision for monthly reporting of contract changes should be especially helpful in correcting problems as soon as they start to develop.
Finally, the County Executive is required to provide substantial reporting on pending and executed contracts, not only to the County Council, but also to the public through the County's website.
The Board of Control is set to begin operation on or shortly after May 11, 2011. The reporting requirements and development of alternative contract delivery systems will be phased in over the next year.