Landscaping contracts - october 2023

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Landscaping Contracts
Released: October 2023

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Download the Highlights Page here

​We undertook this audit because the City's Utilities Committee expressed concerns relate to the costs and performance of the city's landscaping contracts with Russell Landscape, LLC and Ed Castro Landscape, INC. Several departments in the city have contracted with these companies for landscaping related services.

Our recommendations to the Chief Operating Officer is to ensure; Procurement establishes a service level agreement for departments to submit requisitions, Public Works discontinues work under the expired contracts and improves their verification process to charge invoices to the correct purchase order, Enterprise Asset Management makes sure staff use the purchase order process to pay invoices, Transportation amends its right-of-way contract to transfer maintenance responsibilities to Public Works.

We found:

• Noncompliance with financial procedures could increase contract costs.
  
• We found that departments did not consistently pay invoices within the 45-day period required in the contracts.
  
• We found that only two of the contracts outlined specific performance monitoring mechanisms,