City council to consider three expired contracts
YOUNGSTOWN
City council will consider Wednesday authorizing the board of control to renew three expired professional-service contracts, all retroactive to Jan. 1.
“We recognize there is an issue with keeping track of some contracts,” said Anthony Donofrio, the city’s deputy law director. “We have a process in place that will allow us to do better keeping track of them.”
Contracts of at least a year are being identified by the law department, primarily after the deals are approved by the board of control, and put into a computer database, said Mark D’Apolito, an assistant law director and law department’s monitor coordinator.
The system will provide alerts when contracts are getting close to their expiration dates, some 30 days and others in 90 days, depending on what they are, he said.
“In 2016, we should see less contracts [being considered by council retroactively] as information is included into the system,” D’Apolito said.
On council’s agenda are three one-year contract renewals for deals that expired Dec. 31. The work didn’t stop despite the contract expirations.
They are:
As much as $62,000 to have the Warren-Youngstown Urban League continue to run the city’s Human Relations Commission.
Up to $64,997 to Guy Burney to continue to run the Community Initiative to Reduce Violence program.
An amount not to exceed $60,000 for the Youngstown Neighborhood Development Corp. to continue providing planning services.
YNDC asked the city in October about a renewal and again in February, Ian Beniston, its executive director said last week.
The renewal was pulled from the April 1 agenda by Councilwomen Janet Tarpley, D-6th, and Annie Gillam, D-1st, because they had questions.
The two questioned and criticized the YNDC at a council finance committee meeting last Wednesday.
The urban league didn’t contact the city about renewing its contract, Donofrio said.
Burney said his contract automatically rolls over to the next year for a few months, so there was no rush on a renewal.
Also, council will consider giving as much as $50,000 to VXI Global Solutions to offset some of the $220,000 expansion project expense the call-center company is doing at the city-owned 20 Federal Place building.
VXI plans to add 6,300 square feet and about 260 jobs at the downtown location. The company employs about 1,000, and is the largest business at the building at 20 W. Federal St.
The ordinance, sponsored by Mayor John A. McNally, states the $50,000 would come from the business development fund, and if it’s eligible, some could come from the water and wastewater funded.