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Cleveland council pauses plan to codify Consultant Review Committee after debate over transparency and speed
Summary
Council members and city officials debated a proposed ordinance to codify a Consultant Review Committee (CRC) for unbid professional services contracts over $25,000. Administration officials said the CRC provides vendor oversight; others said the committee can slow hiring. The measure was held for further discussion.
Council members on the Finance, Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Committee heard competing views Monday on a proposed ordinance that would require unbid professional services contracts greater than $25,000 to be reviewed by the city’s Consultant Review Committee (CRC).
The proposal, explained by Rachel Scalish, city attorney, would require unbid services contracts above a $25,000 threshold to pass CRC review and would compose the CRC of the director of finance, the director of human resources, the director of OEO and two mayoral/council appointees. “Our ordinance would require it for all unbilled services contracts greater than $25,000,” Scalish said.
Supporters, including the committee’s chair, framed the ordinance as an attempt to protect transparency and make it easier to point vendors to a consistent public process. Bonnie Tewon, chief operating officer for the city of Cleveland, told the committee the administration is trying to streamline what she described as a long, multilayered procurement process: “It’s a 40‑step process… it takes 9 months to hire a consultant,” she said, adding some automatic steps (mailing lists generated by OpenGov) may not need CRC approval.
Committee members pressed both sides on specifics. Councilman Michael Polincic and others said the city must balance efficiency for small businesses against the need to catch conflicts, missed steps or favoritism. Tewon described the current CRC as a triad of voting members (chief of finance, chief of HR and the COO) with OEO participating as a nonvoting reviewer; Scalish described the proposed ordinance as expanding the committee to five voting members and explicitly assigning duties including review of RFP/RFQ documents, vendor lists, scoring criteria and conflict-of-interest checks.
Questions included whether the CRC meetings were open to the public (Tewon said they are not broadcast but are not legally closed), how OEO currently vets lists and proposals, and how much time CRC review adds: committee staff said CRC scheduling typically adds roughly a week to the public agenda plus its biweekly meeting cadence, which in practice can add to multiweek delays in selection. Tewon said some administrative review already occurs across departments before CRC items reach the committee.
Council members said they wanted more details before changing practice: several asked for a clearer mapping of current steps, who reviews what and which parts can safely be shortened without losing OEO oversight. The chair said she would hold the ordinance to allow more discussion between council and administration and to give directors time to review their end‑to‑end processes before any codification.
Outcome: The committee agreed to hold the proposed ordinance and continue discussions; no vote was taken Monday.
