Travis County Commissioners Court

June 5, 2012 - Item 13
Agenda

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>> Moving on, number 13, receive update and take appropriate action regarding request for services rfs number 110195 lc, its assessment and chief information office, transition services, a, change in was scope of work.
B, exception order to contract with recruitment firm to provide interim ceo.
And c, other related issue.

>> Cyd grimes, purchasing agent.
We are here to give you a brief update and get direction from you.
As you know, we've been working for awhile.
We issued a solicitation back in October to hire a firm to do an assessment of our its department, help us to look for a new its director and them transition.
We have been meeting for several months and a lot of discussion.
And where we are today is the operational planning team and subcommittee would like for us to revise the scope of work and basically take out phase 3, which is the search for a new it director.
They would like for the court to approve an exemption order to hire a placement firm to immediately start a search for an interim ceo that would work with the firm if we choose to go forward with the assessment.
And authorize us to begin that process.
So the action we need to do today is to revise the scope of work, taking out phase 3.
As you know, the firm -- the top ranked firm in both evaluation committees was pti, and they were going to provide an interim ceo.
And the team thinks its best to have someone else be that interim ceo.
So the plan is to go ahead and delete that from the scope of work.
Authorize the exemptions to authorize a recruitment firm for the interim ceo, and I guess we'll come back for direction on finalizing negotiations with pti if we want to continue to do the assessment.

>> Okay.
The first part I guess is easy.
If we think we don't want the pci, right?

>> Pti.

>> If we don't think we want them to do phase 3, that's pretty much general agreement on that?
Then I move approval of that one.

>> Okay.

>> That we delete c.
Is that okay?
Discussion?
All in favor?
It passes on a vote of seven to zero.
Commissioner Davis still temporarily off the dais.
And the second part of this is what now?

>> To approve an exemption order so that we can immediately hire a recruitment firm to begin a search for an interim cio.

>> And is this covered by the budget that we set aside initially.

>> No, sir.
I don't believe so.

>> And what do you think that will cost and what's the source of funding for that?

>> We paid -- when we hired an interim before for hr, we paid about 18,000 a month.
I believe some have gotten some quotes from other firms, so we're looking anywhere from 18 to 25,000 a month for that interim cio.

>> And if we could, we actually have personnel vacancies that could absorb those costs.

>> We think we could fund that internally.

>> Yes.

>> In its, is that the department?

>> I believe it is located in its.

>> But we would have an opportunity to look at a specific selection prior to contract approval and the amount will be there.
And I guess we will see what that amount gets for us.

>> Yes, sir.

>> Okay.
That's the committee's determination?

>> Okay.
Questions, comments?
Now, before that -- instead of us selecting a person, we really contracted with an agency to provide that person, right?

>> That's what the recruitment firm would do.

>> Our contract would be with the recruitment firm.
There will be some sort of fee with them.
So yes, it will be a separate firm.

>> Okay.
Now, how do we select the recruitment firm?

>> Asking you to exempt that from competition.

>> When will the court know who that is and why?

>> As soon as you give me direction we'll work with leslie and diane and laurie have already been working.

>> And bring that back to court?

>> Yes.

>> I think this is a similar process to what we went through on the hr interim director.

>> I guess I just loved that.

>> It worked well.
That was the model we were hoping to replicate.

>> I'm not sure I always print that much.
No, I knew.
Move approval of b.

>> Second.

>> Discussion?
This would get it down for us to exempt it and let y'all do your work and at some point you will come out with a recommendation.
Share the cost with us.
All right?
All in favor?
That passes by unanimous vote.
Commissioner Davis still temporarily away.
Did y'all say anything to Commissioner Davis before this item came up?

>> [laughter] is there another part?

>> Well, on c we need to decide if we're going to -- whether we wanting to forward with the assessment and hire pti or whether we want to reject their proposal and do something different.

>> What is the committee's recommendation?

>> I'll let the committee speak.

>> Not everybody on the committee at one time.

>> We have to let our facilitator speak first.

>> Yeah, thanks a lot.

>> [laughter]

>> Sherri fleming, county executive for hhs.
I believe it is our recommendation that we go forward and secure an interim cio who would be able to work with us on modifying the scope of work for pti.
And therefore allowing the purchasing office to do the necessary negotiation based on the new scope of work.
You have clearly approved just a minute ago to pull out a part of that scope of work that you had originally approved so we know we need to be able to draft a scope that pti can respond to and give us a cost based on the actual work we expect them to do.
So we believe the first step is to move forward with engaging the interim cia who will then assist us on pulling together a new scope of work for the assessment and helping with purchasing, being able to negotiate with the vendor.

>> So on this partner, we're looking for a firm, not a person?

>> For the assessment or the cio?

>> For the action today.

>> For the actual cio we're looking for a person.
But as you said, judge, when we did this with the human resources position, we engaged a firm who sent us a candidate that we interviewed.
We interviewed those candidates and made a selection of both the firm and the candidates and we anticipate the same process with the interim cio.

>> Okay.
So we would expect pti to help draft a scope of --

>> No, sir.
We would expect --

>> The scope of work is already drafted.
All we're doing with the scope of work is deleting the phase 3, which is pti providing us the interim cio.
And I'm not sure -- we can't change the scope much because then we would have to throw these all out and start over.
So really it's just they believe that this interim cio can help decide what pti can do in the assessment.

>> I think it's really more sort of the approach of having the interim cio when they're on board helping us to finalize the scope and the price through the final negotiations with pti.

>> As well as to manage the contracts.

>> They can't manage the contracts.

>> But we don't have an interim cio.
The third party is for us to go out and find one.

>> That's correct.

>> Instead of having pti provide one.

>> Right.

>> Okay.
And the interim cio is a person, though?

>> Yes, it is.

>> So how would we select that person?

>> Okay.
Back to you.

>> The recruitment firm will provide us with resumes to look at and we will pick.

>> I understand.
So what we approve in the second item today is a firm really to help us find the interim cio.

>> Yes, sir.

>> And that-- number two would basically give us a list of names.
A short list.
We would interview and select one of those as the interim cio.

>> Absolutely.

>> And when that interim's work is done will be when we have a permanent cio.
So the interim would go away unless selected.
Are we leaving open the possibility of hiring the interim on a permanent basis?

>> I believe we are.

>> We thought that.

>> You can recall that with the hr position we asked the court to make a decision at the beginning of the process whether or not you wanted that person to be -- to be able to be considered for the fte.
And at that point we recommended that they should not be.
I think we believe in this process there's one of two things that the court can do.
You can follow suit and say that person is not eligible and then reverse yourself later if you feel like you want to, or we can just leave that option open for the time being.

>> If I may add, there's been some discussion in the meetings about wanting this interim cio to focus on the interim tasks and the needs immediately at hand and not positioning themselves necessarily for a permanent long-term position, even though we know that that is coming on board at some point.
So one of the options, as sherri mentioned, was that we could pay that this individual is at this point, from our perspective, is not considered for the permanent position, but we could at some point reverse ourselves if we chose to do so, and allow them to be -- which we would be focused and that's an option for consideration.

>> I think we ought to bring back basic wording on that so we can agree to it.
I don't really care one way or the other, but I think we ought to be clear up front.

>> And we agree.

>> And last time it worked out all right, but we were -- we had concluded that if you're here on an interim basis we want you to focus on that 100%.
And it kind of helped because that person was really leaving the state after the assignment anyway.
But in my view however we decide to go is fine with me.
But I think we ought to have the exact wording so there won't be any question about our decision.

>> We can certainly provide that, judge.

>> But I guess if you get a gem in here that we want to keep, we ought to at least leave that door open.

>> We've had similar language in the broadest contract and we had a first phase and second phase on that and we intend they only be hired for the first phase, we had the second phase and it was an option to bring them in for the second.
So we've done that b.

>> Move approval of the third issue as I understand it.

>> Second.

>> That's for that firm to help us locate an interim.

>> No.

>> A list of interim cio's to interview.

>> You've already approved that item.

>> What else do we need to do?
Anything?

>> I think the request was whether or not you were wanting to at this time wanting to direct purchasing to forward to negotiate with the top ranked firm in this process, pti, for the assessment of the information technology department.

>> What are the ramifications from a purchasing act standpoint if we put that on the back burner?
How long will it take us to bring an interim cio on board?
Do we have a time frame for that?

>> A month, month and a half, two months?

>> Are there any purchasing ramifications from back burner and pti negotiations for two months?

>> As long as we don't drastically change the scope of work that we originally issued, and they will agree to hold their proposal.

>> To the extent that we can maintain the status quo and move forward with this criminal cio that would be good.

>> I would agree with that.
With this interim cio, that would be good.

>> I agree with that.

>> I would like to throw out some information for the rest of the court at this point since it didn't happen to come up.
One of the concerns in this whole process is that pti was a highly qualified firm, but they were a very small firm.
And they had initially intended to have one -- a member of their firm serve as the interim cio and that individually ultimately was -- left for another job.
So that's what partially stalled this discussion and caused the obt and others involved to feel like it might be better if we chose the -- if the court chose the interim cio rather than having this consulting firm going out and finding the one.
So that's part of this mix in the process.

>> Let me try to take another shot at this.
So the request now is for us to authorize the purchasing agent to --

>> Hire a search firm.

>> And a search firm?

>> Hire a search firm.

>> Hire a search firm --

>> And locate an interim cio?

>> Correct.

>> So y'all bring back to us a list of two or three that the court would look at and make a selection?

>> If you want to see those three.
If you want to see those three interim.

>> And what was the process we used with hr?
That the individual -- you brought us y'all's final pick.

>> Yes.

>> In that instance.

>> Yes.
The opt brought forward to the court a recommendation of a hire.

>> This isn't the interim cio --

>> I think we ought to see two or three myself.

>> This is just your interim, not your permanent.
Could be your permanent if you allow it.

>> Based on the fee that I'm anticipating, I think that we ought to see the two or three best ones and select one.

>> Okay.

>> And we don't have to strain the process out.
We're talking about an afternoon of interviews.
That doesn't guarantee magical success, but I would feel a whole lot better that way.

>> I'm saying two or three, but if it so happens that you only have one, then we just need to hear the report and I guess if we agree on that one.
But if there are two or three who stand out as being qualified, then I think the caught ought to interview.
Because I think this is important enough.
The interim work may be a short time and may take a lot longer, depends on when we hire the permanent.
And it depends on if there's work to be done during the interim period.
But I don't want to unnecessarily drag this out.
If it looks like that process is taking too long, I would rather it be brought back to court and let us revisit it.

>> Mr. Harlan, what's your anticipated retire date, just so -- because I am a little concerned about the time frame.

>> July 15th.

>> So that's a very tight time frame to interview two or three folks.

>> This court needs to be efficient.

>> [laughter] more efficient than ever, some might say.

>> That's six weeks.
Yes?

>> Ms. Wilson, are you raising your hand or scratching your head?

>> Well, I'm trying to decide.
You've discussed one and you've discussed two, two or three times, but number three is do you want to put the contract that relates to pti on hold until you get your interim cio?

>> I thought they were going to -- don't you expect pti to help you find the interim?

>> No.

>> You don't?
But pti will do the assessment.

>> Yes.

>> Starting yesterday.

>> No.
I haven't been able to sit down and negotiate the contract with them yet.

>> There's some refinement of the scope that needs to happen as well.

>> It's starting immediately or as soon as we can get them going.

>> Yeah.

>> Would it help to have a motion on this, on the third item of placing negotiations with pti on hold until the -- getting an interim cio in position?

>> If that's the committee's recommendation.

>> Yes.

>> Then I make that motion.

>> I second.

>> And make sure I understand.
The motion is the -- the work that we had hoped for pti to do for us, we've put that on hold until --

>> Yes, because we're putting on hold the negotiations for them to do that work because we just changed the scope today, which means that the pricing that they have quoted will change.
But we want to wait until we get the interim ceo on board to assist the operational planning team, which includes purchasing.
In that negotiation.

>> And do our partners at pti know about this?

>> Yes, they know.

>> Is pti here today?

>> They're not our partners yet.

>> [laughter]

>> They're just hoping that they get the job.

>> Okay.

>> And they're highly qualified.
We don't think that process is in any way complicating our -- indicating a lack of competence in what they have presented to us from the evaluation standpoint.

>> So the motion is on hold.
Put the pti determinetation on hold.

>> Yes, sir.

>> Second.

>> That's what you seconded.
Discussion?
All in favor?
Show Commissioners Eckhardt, Gomez, Huber and yours truly voting in favor.

>> Show Commissioner Davis abstaining.

>> Commissioner Davis abstaining.
Now let's go back to the selection of that interim person.
We didn't act on that yet, right?

>> Yes, sir.
You don't have an exemption order order for me to go hire a search firm to bring you the cio interim applications and y'all will pick an interim cio.
And after you do that hopefully we'll go forward with pti and have them do the assessment or y'all might decide something different.

>> Show a very happy county judge that we are done with that item.
My motion was no good.
Did anybody second it?

>> Which one?
Irrelevant.

>> We're eliminating that third part of the scope of services, right?
Then we -- we're exempting the pti, putting it on hold.
Who is hiring the interim?
Pti?

>> No, sir.
The search firm.

>> The search firm.
That was the third action we took.

>> That was item b.
Special exemption to go to -- for several firms and get recommendations, which is the process we did before.

>> Yes.

>> They'll submit resumes to us.
The organizational planning team will interview those candidates and short list for the court, and bring back no more than three potentially candidates for you to review.

>> And possibly just one.

>> And possibly yes.

>> Yes.

>> So we're done with nine.
Or 13 rather.

>> [laughter]

>> That's all for now.

>> All right.

>> Good work, I guess.

>> [laughter]

>> They have paid their dues on this one.

>> Okay.

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