City, Workforce Development board at odds over consultant fees

Last edited 8:49 a.m., Feb. 20, 2025 [Editor's note: A reference to Community Partnership of the Ozarks has been corrected to Community Foundation of the Ozarks. Additional information from the city of Springfield has been added.]

A dispute over consultant fees has put the relationship between the city of Springfield and the Ozark Region Workforce Development Board on rocky ground for the second time in an eight-month period.

The issue came to a head at the Feb. 5 meeting of the seven-county Workforce Development Board, for which the city of Springfield serves as fiscal agent.

In May 2024, the board contracted with New Orleans-based Dadco Consulting Services Inc. to craft a strategic plan and make recommendations for future operations and did so, according to board Chair Andrea Sitzes, with the assistance of city staff.

The board requested that a portion of the consultant’s fees be paid through federal Department of Labor Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act funds funneled to the board via the state Department of Workforce Development and paid by the city in its role as the board’s fiscal agent. The request for WIOA funds was for $27,900 of the total consultancy fees that are estimated at $82,500. The remainder of the funds would be covered by contributions through the board’s account with Community Foundation of the Ozarks.

A few days prior to the Feb. 5 board meeting, Sitzes was informed by the city that the board’s payment requests had been sent to the Missouri Department of Workforce Development for review of the federal fund expenditure.

In an interview with Springfield Business Journal on Feb. 14, Jody Vernon, Springfield’s assistant director of finance, said the board’s procurement process to hire the consultant had raised concerns. Specifically, the board received four bids that were not sealed for a request for proposals for the consulting contract that ultimately went to Dadco. Additionally, the RFP did not include evaluation criteria, and it did not initially provide scoring sheets for the proposals received for consultancy services. The issue is being further reviewed by outside agency Forvis Mazars LLP, according to Vernon.

At the board meeting, Vernon read from a memo from the Missouri Department of Workforce Development received the day prior that said, “The state should not be intervening. This is a decision the city needs to make.”

Vernon told the board the city would be making its decision based on its procurement procedures and city policies, as it does with all payments. When asked by SBJ if it was common practice to send payment requests to the state to review, Vernon said it was not.

“Based on the information we have at this point, we do not anticipate paying those [fees] because of some of the concerns with the procurement process,” Vernon said. “We’re still kind of lining all of that out, but at this point, we cannot pay them as is.”

SBJ reached out to Sitzes to ask for her response to the city’s anticipated nonpayment.

“Not surprising, but it would have been good to hear this from our fiscal agent,” she said via email on Feb. 14.

In an interview via email earlier in the day, Sitzes also raised communication concerns.

“It is unfortunate that the fiscal agent’s thoughts weren’t shared with the board before being sent to either the state or the outside third party,” she said. “As fiscal agent, it is their responsibility to advise us on expenses. This all could have been a nonissue if our fiscal agent would have been transparent and direct in communication with the board.”

The city provides an accounting supervisor staff member to sit in on board meetings and provide advice to the board, according to Sitzes. That staffer has been with the board throughout the procurement process to hire the consultant.

Pat Shay of Thousand Hills Golf Club, a business representative to the board, raised the concern at the board meeting that the city’s decision to ask the state to review the expenditure was in an effort to slow-roll the payment to delay consultant recommendations. Shay went so far as to call the situation “weird.”

“To the point where it seems like the city is almost holding back payment in the hopes that we lose interest in this process, to not continue the process,” he said “I mean, it just looks awful weird – really, really suspicious.”

Vernon told the board that avoiding the appearance that it was deliberately blocking the process is exactly why the city reached out to the state to review the use of the funds.

“We’re not withholding payment hoping to slow down the process in any way. We are doing our due diligence, as we do with all payments,” she said. “We don’t get pressured into making a payment, but we’re also not going to hold it up unnecessarily.”

History of discord
The city and the board have had a contentious relationship since the city decided to move the location of the one-stop shop, the Missouri Job Center, without first consulting the board. The issue appeared on a Springfield City Council agenda in May 2024, and the board’s then incoming chair, Sitzes, told council that board members had been informed less than a week before the meeting.

Acting at the board’s recommendation, the Council of Local Elected Officials subsequently dropped the city as its fiscal agent but has since entered into a series of new short-term agreements with the city. The city offered to provide fiscal agent services free of charge through the consultancy period, but the offer was declined, according to city spokesperson Cora Scott.

It’s a decision that followed what Sitzes characterized as board introspection into its mission, client services and services to the seven-county region, as Sitzes told City Council at the May 2024 meeting.

“I am sad to report that through that introspective assessment, nearly every single item that we are responsible for had room for improvement – significant room for improvement,” she said at the time.

The process led the board to contract with the consultant.

Board perspective
Susan Johanson of Guaranty Bank, a board member and its former chair, said at the Feb. 5 meeting that the issue of accessing funds to pay for the consultant is both frustrating and disappointing for board members, which had a retreat a year and a half ago and decided on its current course of action to develop a strategic plan.

“We’ve been working on this for quite some time. It’s not like it’s a big surprise,” she said. “It’s disappointing that it’s been dragged out a lot more than it should have. We’ve made an agreement and signed a contract with a consultant, and we’re not able to deliver.”

Johanson said the board was forwarded an email from its city liaison on June 25, and it laid out four items that were needed to access funds from the federal grant: a formal advertised solicitation for the amount of the contract if over $40,000, a contract between the board and awardee, a requisition, and a vendor setup form to allow a purchase order and payment form to be issued.

Johanson said the board learned of additional documentation it would need via an email message on Jan. 14.

“Can you explain that, Jody – why we didn’t know that prior to Jan. 14 so we could get this taken care of? I mean, that’s over six months,” Johanson said.

Vernon said she could not, and she said that she didn’t remember the email, which she was carbon copied on.

“I get many, many an email,” she said.

Vernon added that she understands the frustration, but she noted the final documentation that was requested was provided on Jan. 22.

Bill Skains, a member of the Branson Board of Aldermen and a consultant to the board – though not the Dadco consultant whose payment is in limbo – indicated initially during the meeting that the process, though cumbersome, was not unusual.

“Everybody seems to be operating with good faith. There are very icky-ticky procedures that you’ve got to deal with in procurement,” he said. “If anything that we’ve learned out of this, it needs to be reduced down to writing and placed in our policies.”

Sitzes said the explanation that she received verbally about why the issue was sent to the state for the review was not in alignment with the reason that was given via email.

“If you were concerned about a conflict of interest, I’m curious as to why that was not the original response that was sent when I asked for clarification,” Sitzes said, addressing Vernon.

Vernon said she would have to review the email to answer that question.

Skains said as somebody who has been involved in procurement for 42 years, he does not see a conflict of interest with any of the board members, who lack a pecuniary interest and are not related by blood, marriage or adoption through any part of the process.

“We’re all sitting here doing this and trying to do the best for our people in the region. It’s not to game the system,” he said. “There’s I’s to be dotted and T’s to be crossed, and I applaud the city for trying to do that. I just wish that those would all have been laid out a little better up front.”

The board has funds to pay the consultant on its own through a Community Foundation of the Ozarks Inc. account. The board has raised some $60,000 in contributions toward its $82,500 goal.

Dadco has completed three of four phases, and the fourth phase – which will include a report of the consultant’s findings – is on hold pending the final payment.

Fiscal agent concerns
In accepting the city as its fiscal agent, the board passes a measure every two years to abide by its fiscal policies, according to Vernon.

“When we did receive the payment request and the full documentation and reviewed it, we had concerns about it, and we did submit it to the state to get an independent look at it to make sure that we were following the documentation properly,” Vernon said.

She wanted to avoid the appearance that the city was being difficult to work with or was trying to punish the board.

“It was strictly a matter of is this a legitimate payment to be made with federal moneys,” she said.

Amanda Ohlensehlen, the city’s director of Economic Vitality and Workforce Development, told SBJ it is common practice to communicate with agency partners at the state level. She added that the city has a wide portfolio of grants that it manages.

“While this particular instance may be a little less commonplace, it is common practice for us to reach out to those agencies that are responsible for these programs and funding,” she said.

Asked about the apparent fractured relationship between the city and the board and the apparent mistrust that exists, Scott told SBJ she found it odd.

“I feel that the record of the services provided by our Workforce Development department and our Finance Department as the fiscal agent, with the decades of experience – it just seems odd to me, some of the antagonism … not by all board members, but certainly by some,” she said.

Next steps
Because of Springfield’s nonpayment of the board’s bills, the board tabled renewal of four agreements it has with the city. A one-stop operator agreement allows the city to run the board’s Missouri Job Center, where job hunters go to obtain services. In addition to that and the fiscal agent agreement, there are agreements in place for a youth program and administrative services for federal grants, and all are set to expire at the end of this month.

The board has been approving short-term agreements throughout the consultancy period.

The board agreed to call a special meeting to approve agreements if the city decides to pay the consultant fees.

Thomas Douglas of JMark Business Solutions Inc., vice president of the board and a small-business representative, said the day’s discussion was emblematic of why possible changes to the agreements are on the table at all.

“I feel like we’re stuck between a rock and a hard place in terms of decisions in this situation,” he said at the Feb. 5 meeting.

Sitzes agreed, and she said she is aware that Bob Dixon, chair of the Council of Local Elected Officials, sees things similarly.

“I also know from my conversations with Commissioner Dixon, they, as the CLEO – and not speaking for the CLEO, but based on his comments – are not comfortable at this time voting to move forward until all our bills are paid,” she said.

Dixon did not respond to a request for comment by deadline.

During the Feb. 5 meeting, Skains raised a broader concern, which is the uncertainty over federal WIOA funds, which pay for the board’s services.

“We’re looking at real possible cuts in allocations moving forward,” he said, noting that the White House may make deep cuts to WIOA. “We have no idea how much money you’re talking about in this that’s going to be available. We have no idea. This is the biggest limbo situation I’ve ever seen in my life.”