City staff on Oct. 22 told the Palo Alto City Council they are developing a formal set of best practices for procuring and managing consultants, citing a recent turf study as an example of a project that drew heavy public attention, many records requests and sharply divided views.

Catherine Fortenberry, the city’s management fellow leading the work, told the council the review covers consultant engagements “from inception through completion,” including budgeting, procurement, project management, community engagement and closeout evaluation. “Our goal here is to reinforce the city of Palo Alto as a leader in ensuring and producing innovative and accountable consultant services,” Fortenberry said.

Fortenberry said staff interviewed in-house staff across departments and established a new step in the current fiscal-year budget process requiring the budget office and city manager’s office to review potential contractual services earlier in budget development. She said the city auditor is conducting a parallel review and that an interdepartmental staff group will develop the best-practices guide.

Council member Stone opened questioning by noting the city spent about $27 million on consultants in 2024 and asked whether staff could estimate what that work would have cost if done in-house. Fortenberry replied that many consultant engagements are finite and hiring full‑time staff for short-term needs can carry long-term pension and retirement liabilities; she said the approach often remains at least break-even or a long-term savings compared with hiring for short-term project work.

Multiple council members urged the creation of objective post‑project evaluations and clearer escalation paths so consultants can respond to, and incorporate, council and community feedback. Fortenberry said staff would prioritize tools for evaluation and escalation and flagged the sensitivity of how contractor performance data would be shared because it could be perceived as punitive by vendors.

Council members and public speakers also recommended better use of local technical expertise. Stone and others suggested the city should more deliberately tap resident experts and make clear in scopes how consultants should integrate local knowledge and respond when community input conflicts with consultant recommendations.

Public commenters supported the idea of leaning on local expertise but urged caution: one speaker said resident experts sometimes serve as paid advocates and advised the council to retain independent analysis when needed.

Fortenberry closed by saying the work should continue through the holidays and that staff plans to return to council after the new year with recommendations and draft practices, including soliciting feedback from the consultant community on whether proposed standards are implementable.

Ending

City staff framed the project as ongoing; council discussion prioritized three near‑term outputs: (1) clearer rules for when to outsource versus hire, (2) a rubric or guidance for assessing consultant performance, and (3) a public process design for integrating local expertise into outsourced projects. No formal council action was taken at the meeting.