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Board approves payment of $28,800 to Morrison Consulting after auto‑renewal lapse
Summary
The Board of Estimates approved payment of an outstanding $28,800 invoice to Morrison Consulting to cover maintenance of visitor check‑in kiosks after an automatic contract renewal occurred without a purchase order in place; procurement officials said they are tightening controls and training staff to prevent repeats.
The Baltimore City Board of Estimates on Oct. 1 approved an unauthorized procurement payment of $28,800 to Morrison Consulting Inc. to cover maintenance work on the city's visitor check‑in kiosk systems.
Adam Manning, chief procurement officer, told the board the vendor performed maintenance after a contract from 2021 automatically renewed under an auto‑renewal clause and the city did not have an encumbering purchase order in place to pay the invoice. "This contract had an auto auto renewal clause in. It automatically renewed. The vendor came out, did the maintenance, did the service, but we did not have a purchase order in place encumbering the funds to cover that service," Manning said.
Manning said the Bureau of Procurement is changing its template practice to avoid auto‑renewal clauses in future solicitations and is developing online training modules on contract administration for city staff. He acknowledged a mix of agency contract administration errors and procurement office training gaps as the cause. "Part of this is contract administration on the agency's portion, understanding their contracts for what it is and how it's going. So it's a combination of things," Manning said.
Board members pressed for assurance the issue would be rare going forward. Manning said staff are beta testing on‑demand training modules in the city's WorkSafe system and that the procurement office is working closely with the solicitor's office to prevent auto‑renewals. The board approved the payment by voice vote.
Why it matters: the payment resolves a vendor invoice for an executed service; procurement officials signaled policy and training changes to reduce the recurrence of contract administration errors that can require retroactive board approval.
