Mayor Sharon Weston Broome and her administration were rightfully proud of the $300,000 they wrangled from the Metro Council last summer to retain a team of nationally renowned efficiency experts, who are helping identify systems improvements and savings to City Hall coffers.
Unfortunately, as Business Report Editor Stephanie Riegel writes in her new column, no one asked the experts about hiring a program manager to oversee the nearly $1.2 billion in road improvement projects the parish will undertake over the next three decades, thanks to a half-cent sales tax voters approved last fall.
Perhaps if someone had, Baton Rouge wouldn’t have two program management teams—comprising no less than 10 consulting, engineering and communications firms—to oversee one capital program funded by one revenue source.
To understand how we got here, Riegel writes, it’s important to remember that the program management contract for MovEBR will be the largest in Baton Rouge history.
In theory, it might have seemed like a good idea, not in the least because it spreads the love and creates opportunities for lots of local firms to share in the spoils. But now the administration has to figure out how to manage the managers. It won’t be easy and it cannot possibly be efficient.
Read Riegel’s full column about the two MovEBR managers and the city’s struggle to figure out how to get the project moving. Â
