EAST PALO ALTO
CITY COUNCIL
STAFF REPORT
DATE: March 21, 2023
TO: Honorable Mayor and Members of the City Council
VIA: Melvin E. Gaines, City Manager
BY: Tomohito Oku, Finance Director
SUBJECT: Amendment No. 1 for Harper & Associates Professional Services Agreement Recommendation
Adopt a resolution authorizing the City Manager to execute Amendment No. 1 to the Harper & Associates Professional Services Agreement, in a form approved by the City Attorney, extending the agreement term through December 31, 2024.
Alignment with City Council Strategic Plan
This recommendation is primarily aligned with:
Priority No. 3: Increase Organizational Effectiveness and Efficiency Priority No. 5: Improve Communication and Enhance Community Engagement Background
In March 2021, the City entered into a professional services agreement with Kevin W. Harper CPA & Associates (“Harper & Associates”) to assess and improve the city-wide grants management policies and processes. Harper & Associates developed the “Grants Management Policies and Procedures” and reviewed a few of City’s grant programs providing feedbacks on our practice.
The purpose of this staff report is to extend the term of the original agreement and to continue supporting projects to reassess, revise, monitor, and train staff in City grants policies and procedures to ensure development and maintenance of a comprehensive and sound management of grant programs.
Analysis
The City retained Harris & Associates to assist with identifying grant opportunities and submitting grant applications to fund deferred capital projects as well as on housing projects and park programs. As a result, the City has been awarded for several grant programs from federal, state and local sources for those purposes. Each grant program has unique and complex compliance requirements and requires improvement of the existing grant management structure including the current weak internal control environment over compliance so that it will have capacity to take in additional grants and mitigate risks of noncompliance. The project is an extension and expansion of the previous work and will build upon the existing policies and procedures. The consultant will also provide staff training not only to the newly hired grant coordinator but also to existing and potential grant project managers to communicate and implement the revised policy and procedures.
Fiscal Impact
There is no fiscal impact by this recommendation since the contract amendment requires only a term extension.
Environmental
The proposed action is exempt from the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) because it is not a “project” pursuant to 15378(b)(4) because it is a fiscal activity which does not involve any commitment to any specific project which may result in a potentially significant impact on the environment.
Attachments
1. Resolution
2. Harper & Associates Scope of Services