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Commissioner questions multi‑year early-learning consulting as county authorizes another ACS contract
Summary
On June 9 commissioners approved a contract extension with Advocacy and Communication Solutions for early-learning strategy work, while one commissioner pressed staff to produce the full contract history and total spending on ACS services.
The Franklin County Board of Commissioners approved a renewal contract with Advocacy and Communication Solutions (ACS) to continue advising the county’s early‑learning strategy, but the meeting included pointed questions about the total cost and the length of the county’s relationship with the consultant.
Tama Bumper, deputy director for Job and Family Services, said ACS has been helping the county with research, cost modeling and steering‑committee facilitation and that deliverables under the contract include staffing strategy work and continued facilitation of internal and governance work groups. "Throughout this project, ACS completed detailed research, cost model modeling, planning, drafting of project framework, and facilitated..." she said while describing the scope.
Commissioner Boyce asked directly: "How much have we spent? I mean at one point... I just want to get my hands around what the investment has been in this analysis." Bumper said the office would research the total historical spend and return that figure to the board. Later in the exchange staff and the county administrator described multi‑year contracting with ACS and said some components are being brought in‑house, but they did not provide a single audited total in the meeting record.
Why it matters: Commissioners authorized the work to continue while seeking greater transparency around total consultant spending. For long-running consulting relationships, commissioners said they want to explore which functions can be transitioned to county staff to reduce long-term reliance on outside consultants.
What’s next: Staff committed to compile and circulate the contract history and spending totals for ACS and related early-learning work so the board can review transition options and break out which prior payments related to early‑learning strategy versus other projects.
