Marcia Conner's future as Durham's city manager remained unclear Monday night after a closed meeting of the Durham City Council and the release during the open portion of its meeting of an audit detailing the non-compliance of her office in executing contracts.
The council, which postponed a final decision on Conner's fate until another closed session today and its regular work session Thursday, has been evaluating her performance after Mayor Bill Bell's call for an audit of all transactions by the city manager's office.
The council began Monday night's meeting half an hour late after the special closed session ran overtime and had to be adjourned until today. The session was prompted by concerns last week that Conner's office had not handed out service and construction contracts in compliance with existing regulations.
One such breach involved the awarding of a $30,000 contract to the Marshall Group, a firm led by Byron Marshall, who succeeded Conner as the assistant city manager of Austin, Texas. City policy requires that any contract worth over $10,000 be advertised and bid on by competing firms.
Although council members postponed open discussion of the report until Thursday's working session so council members could fully examine it, copies were released to the public.
Durham's Office of Audit Services filed the report on Conner's compliance with Durham's financial policy FP-503.01, 'Purchasing and Contracting on behalf of the City of Durham.' The auditors aimed to determine if city departments--specifically the city manager's office--have complied with the policy since it took effect March 15, 2001. The audit--which examined 132 random city contracts and all 40 contracts initiated by the city manager's office--found irregularities in both samples, and concluded that the city is not in compliance with its current financial policy.
Among the random sample, selected from over 2,500 such contracts, two had not received the city manager's approval, four were signed by the city manager prior to the council's approval and eight were executed before documented city manager approval. Compliance, in part, includes the presence of signatures from the city manager, the city clerk and the finance director, as well as concordance with the city's minority and women's business enterprise ordinance and other measures, such as advertisement for contract bids, depending on the monetary value of the particular contract.
Within the 40 contracts that originated from Conner's office, three had not been advertised for bids, two received her signature prior to council approval, and three were executed prior to Conner's documented approval.
During its regular meeting Monday, the council discussed approval of a site plan for an apartment complex on Cole Mill Road. Residents present at the meeting cited the disruption that the proposed three-story apartment complex would bring to a residential neighborhood of single family homes.
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