Port of Bellingham OKs another just under 100K, no-bid contract

Port of Bellingham commissioners approved another consultant contract at their regular board meeting on October 15. The contract authorized port executive director Rob Fix to execute a personal services (PS) contract with Maul Foster and Alongi, Inc. (MFA) to conduct a study of industrial lands and employment in Whatcom County. The study is intended to supplement the work done by the county and cities to update the county’s 2025 comprehensive plan as required by the Growth Management Act (GMA).

In Washington state, a PS contract is defined as a formal agreement between a government agency and an individual or company to provide services that require specialized skills or expertise. These services are typically intellectual in nature, rather than manual labor, and include consulting, technical expertise, training or other professional services.

The contract is similar in some ways to the PS contract signed by the port in August with Conflux Associates to conduct a public relations campaign to improve the port’s standing with taxpayers. However, unlike Conflux which has no web presence and has a Chuckanut Point residential address for its corporate office, MFA is a living, breathing concern crawling with engineers, geologists, meteorologists, environmental scientists, planners, communication experts and more. Established in 1996, the firm has eight offices in Washington, Oregon and Idaho.

The MFA study would cost $99,435, just shy of the $100,000 level that triggers formal bid procedures whereby the port would publicly issue a Request for Proposals (RFP) and interested firms could submit bids; typically, governmental agencies are required to accept the lowest bid, although exceptions can be made. Under Resolution 1279-A, port policy allows contracts costing between $50,000 and $100,000 to be issued without formal bid procedures.

Regardless, state law mandates that ports must be able to show evidence of competitive activity regarding those contracts i.e., that they have offered the work to other firms who had an equal opportunity to offer their services. No such evidence was shown to commissioners other than a statement that the choice of “consultant was based upon the firm’s response to a request for personal services.”

In the Conflux Associates contract, that meant the firm had registered on the port’s work roster that is listed on the Municipal Services and Research Center website. Presumably, the same applies for MFA.

In an apparent bit of sloppiness, the PS contract between the port and MFA calls for the study to be completed on or before December 31, 2024, just two-and-a-half months from signing. However, the proposal attached to the contract calls for the final report to be completed by the end of March 2025. This mirrors that of the Conflux contract whose scope projected a three-year term at a cost of $298,200. However, the PS contract was for only a one-year term at a cost of $99,396 with the option of one-year renewals. No change to the scope of services or mileposts were made, raising the specter that the contract had been structured to avoid triggering formal bid procedures which is against state law.

While structuring doesn’t appear to be present in the MFA contract, the fact that it will cost just $565 shy of the $100,000 bid trigger could certainly raise the eyebrows of skeptical observers. According to the MFA proposal, the “cost estimate does not represent a lump sum. MFA bills for time and materials, consistent with the attached schedule of costs.” That schedule anticipates 535 hours of work for a total of $99,425, or $185/hour. Personnel is charged at the rate of $115-$135/hour for administrative support to $145-$155/hour for graphic design to $260-$280/hour for a principal.

The tasks involved in the study are four-fold: industrial sector trends, industrial land supply analysis, industrial sector employment growth projections and reporting. Given that the Port of Bellingham is the primary economic development agency in Whatcom County, it seems odd that it doesn’t already have much, if not most, of this information already. Zoning maps are readily available, and planning and development experts are just a city or county phone call away.

According to the staff report, “The study was not anticipated in the 2024 budget; however, the Economic Development budget has lapse to cover the costs.” Under the GMA, counties are required to update their comprehensive plans every eight years with Whatcom County’s due at the end of 2025, which raises the question of why the expense was unscheduled. Commissioner Michael Shepard wanted to know “How does this study differ from other studies that we’ve done? We are under budget pressure, just like lots of other organizations and I’m trying to figure out how this expenditure dovetails with any of these previous things that we’ve looked at.” Port director of economic development Tyler Schroeder responded, saying that the study would build off that work.