Politics & Government

The Issues: Should the City Continue to Hire Consultants

Candidates running in the Nov. 8 Benicia City Council and mayoral election answer questions posed by Benicia Patch with input from readers.

Use of consultants by the city has always been controversial. Consultants are supposed to have special expertise that supplements city staff's expertise, but also isn't needed for the smooth day-to-day running of City Hall. 

But they are expensive. 

Today’s question: I'd like to ask the candidates for their criterion and justifications for spending diminishing tax money on consultants?  What are the TANGIBLE benefits received by tax payers? Do you intend to continue spending public money in this manner if elected/re-elected?

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City Council candidates:


I hate spending money on consultants because they’re so expensive.  We’ve got two reasons why we use them. The first is to avoid paying employee pension and health benefits, and to fill short term stop gaps. These are really independent contractors and this is really out sourcing which unions dislike us doing. But when you look at our pension premiums that were zero, that’s zero dollars in 2001 and this year will be about $4 million out of a $30 million General Fund Budget it makes sense. Still these independent contractor/consultants charge $50 to over $100 an hour so it’s still very expensive. The second reason we use consultants, and this is the real problem area, is to fill voids in our expertise in areas. I’ll give you an example. Remember three years ago when there was the attempt to put in a “gentlemen’s club”.  The City needed someone with very specific constitutional knowledge on strip club ordinances because no one wants one in their city so all these cities put in ordinances that didn’t allow them and then lost expensive lawsuits based on First Amendment violations. You need someone who knew what they were doing in a very specific area. That’s a consultant that is justifiable. Where we run into problems is when senior staff start substituting this reason for hiring a consultant with hiring a consultant because it’s more convenient than doing the work in house by people who are capable of doing the job but have other work they’d like to do instead. I don’t like micro managing but this is an area that you have to be capable of going in and saying do this in house and don’t hire a consultant. This creates friction both with staff and with some on the council that have a different view of consultants. But I never said I was doing this job to make friends.


Since I have been involved in the City for the last 20 years as a business owner, economic development board member and my work with Benicia Main Street, I have seen consultants used and misused.  They now have a bad connotation with many residents as a waste of money. I will give you a couple of examples where consultants were needed because of their expertise in a particular area.

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Placemaking Group was hired to define a tourism plan for the City. This was an important step in developing a strategy to define a target market, tag line and logo and the steps to make it comprehensive.  The City had tried on many occasions to get tourism off the ground but without the expertise of a consultant we would not be where we are today without a plan.

 Jack Wolf and Wolf Communications were hired 2 years ago to implement the tourism and marketing plan.  Jack was hired because of his expertise in public relations in the Bay Area.  Because of that relationship and expertise Benicia was featured in the June issue of Sunset Magazine as a Northern California weekend destination. The town was also publicized on KGO radio with an interview with Mayor Patterson and the chef from Sailor Jack did a cooking demonstration on a SF television network for the Super Bowl.  There have been other media opportunities that Jack Wolf did as a consultant for PR that we as a City could not have done without his media contacts and knowledge.

Prudent city management balances numerous types of employees, from benefitted full-time and part-time staff to non-benefitted consultants and contractors.  The latter frequently delivers more expert work than city staff can do and does so without expanding our benefitted staff.  I would consider the City Manager’s recommendations regarding all these types of employees on a case-by-case basis.


I have been critical of hiring consultants to do work that can be done by city employees.  I identified several consultants that the planning department was using to do plan  checks and site inspections.  Work that could clearly be done by city employees.  The consultants have not been used for the past few years for these purposes.  One example is Coastland Engineering.  We were paying them in excess of $50,000 for a number of years to do work that city employees could do.  Mr. Knox argued that their fees were offset by the fees collected for plan reviews and site inspections; however, I argued that if we had city employees do that work, the city could retain those fees collected as a revenue source.  We don't use Coastland any longer.   I would seek to reduce the use of consultants wherever possible.

Mayoral Candidates:


I have been requesting for years that as we hire new employees we look for those that have expertise in areas that we commonly spend on consultants. This would save money by keeping some things in house. 

We spend too much money on consultants, however often times our staff just doesn’t have the expertise, legal or otherwise, needed to evaluate, inspect, etc. a particular issue or project.  Some projects/issues are onetime items and hiring an employee doesn’t make sense economically.

It needs to be mentioned that a portion of the money spent on consultants is actually passed through money. One prime example is for the engineering firm that conducted the inspections of the Valero VIP project.  This was paid for by Valero.  Sometimes hiring a consultant is unavoidable. The key is making sure that going outside is absolutely necessary. If we don’t have the expertise in house then we don’t have a choice. Unless the item is discretionary in which case the tangible benefit to the taxpayer needs to be discussed and evaluated and a strong case for approval be made before a decision is made to go ahead with the item.  We need to focus on needs not wants.


To protect our reduced revenues (most of the city’s revenues are property tax, sales tax and user utility tax), we must be effective and efficient in maintaining city services for the qualify of life our residents and businesses desire.  Therefore, I do not support and have no interest in "out sourcing" regular day to day jobs in the city, such as most of the jobs in the library, Parks and Recreation, public works, waste water, water treatment, and public safety.  I believe our employees deliver quality city services better than contracted services (for the most part).  This is one of the reasons we have a sense of a strong community.

However.  When it comes to highly specialized jobs that are not routine, and are expected to be a one-time need, I prefer using the expertise of a consultant.  

For instance, the city attorney's office uses outside attorneys who charge on a time basis and still cost less than it would cost to employ another city attorney.  Much of the technical legal work is done by one-time legal teams because we have had only one adult entertainment lawsuit, one public employee lawsuit, and so on.  Some people make a case for using a contract law firm that has all of these areas of expertise rather than a city attorney.  There are arguments for both approaches.

For city building inspections, it is kind of a seasonal issue.  We need city employees for everyday building activity, but some times, due to the seasonal or economic cycle increase in activity, outside help is hired.  This still saves the city money because if we hired city staff for those seasonal or work load swings, and later there was no work, we would still have to pay salaries and benefits for these employees.  That, of course, is not a wise use of city revenue.

Some city engineering work is consistently done by one or two firms for the city especially in waste water and water supply. These firms have experts for a variety of tasks that we would have to hire at least 3 technical people or more to fulfill.  Rather than hire three technical people who would not have work all year round, we are better off contracting with the firms.

Again, for routine, day to day work from administration to all the others I have listed, I prefer to hire as staff and hopefully pay them enough so they can live in Benicia.

Nov. 8, 2011, City Council and Mayor Election Handbook: Candidate Q&As, Bios and Voter Guides

Disclosure: Patch editor JB Davis was the campaign manager for Dan Smith in his successful campaign for City Council in 2001.  He has no involvement in Smith’s 2011 campaign.


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