Politics & Government

City Wades Through Pile of Contracts Dating Back to 1939

Procurement Director Jerry Hillin was directed by the board to audit hundreds of city contracts, many of which were forgotten and unused even though they'd never been closed.

At Wednesday night's Wentzville Board of Aldermen meeting, Procurement Director Jerry Hillin asked for the board to cancel three city contracts.

All the contracts were auto-renewing contracts. One was with the City of Kirkwood for support with GIS mapping, which the city no longer needs. The two other contracts were for a short-lived experiment from 2007, where the city leased utility poles from Ameren and then contracted with a company to hang advertisement banners for local businesses.

Hillin said that the city received no revenue in the deal and that they didn't even have a record of how much was charged for the banners.

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"We do have some of the old banners," Hillin said.

These three contracts are just an example of a huge number of contracts that Hillin and his department have been wading their way through since Hillin was asked to perform an internal audit of the city's active contracts in 2012.

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Some of the contracts, such as the city's contracts with the railroad, date back to 1939—and they are still in effect.

Altogether, out of 640 contracts from all departments of city government—public works, parks, administration and the rest—Hillin's team has closed out a grand total of 596. The city currently has 340 active contracts with a lifetime dollar value of more than $45 million.

If the numbers don't add up, Hillin pointed out, it's because the numbers are always changing. More contracts are added every month, even as Hillin closes out the old ones.

Hillin gave credit to former Alderman Van Sample for the idea to put all the city's contracts into electronic files which can be retrieved, amended and reviewed without ever having to make a paper copy.

Funds to move all the contracts to electronic versions will be requested in the 2014 budget.


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