Skip to content
Exhibit 02Request 25-197One memo, August 1, 2019Not Community Transit
Home/The Records/The Threshold
02

The
Threshold

Community Transit's Board of Directors never voted on the Tapia Productions contract. It did not have to. The award came in under the number that would have required them.

Every figure on this page is from one document: the agency's own August 1, 2019 memo to its Finance, Performance & Oversight Committee.

Per contract year

$150,000CEO can award without the Board
$120,000Award, per year
80%Of the limit
NoneBoard votes at award
June 13, 2019The award
FPOC memo, August 1, 2019Status
On June 13, 2019 under the delegated authority of the Chief Executive Officer, Community Transit awarded a five-year contract RFP #2019-051, Web Developer Consulting Services to Tapia Productions, Inc. in the not to exceed amount of $120,000 per year.

The limit is measured per contract year. The contract was five years. At $120,000 a year that is $600,000 of public money, awarded without the Board voting on any of it.

August 1, 2019Forty-nine days later

Larry Olson and Ginny Justiniano write to the Finance, Performance & Oversight Committee.

FPOC memo, August 1, 2019
Very quickly we realized that the level of effort and need for services under this contract are greater than anticipated and now will exceed the Chief Executive Officer's delegated contract award authority of $150,000 per contract year.

Seven weeks.

Seven weeks after signing, the work that fit inside $120,000 no longer fit inside $150,000.

Already appropriatedThe budget was already there
FPOC memo, August 1, 2019
The 2019 budget, adopted by the Board of Directors by Resolution 09-18 on December 6, 2018, contains sufficient budget to cover web consulting services for the current year. Resolution 05-19, which amended the 2019 budget, provides budget authority for multi-year web consulting services.

The money for multi-year web consulting had been appropriated before the memo asking for it was written.

The ask$300,000
FPOC memo, August 1, 2019Recommendation
That the Finance, Performance & Oversight Committee recommend that the Board of Directors authorize the Chief Executive Officer to negotiate and award contract amendments to Tapia Productions Inc. that will not exceed $300,000 in individual contract years.

Two and a half times the amount awarded. The Board is asked to approve the increase, having never been asked to approve the contract.

OmittedWhat the memo does not say

It does not mention that Tapia Productions is owned by the husband of a manager in the Information Technology department the contract serves. Community Transit had put that in writing to her almost two years earlier, on August 15, 2017, and told her it was grounds for discharge.

Ten weeks before this memo, on May 30, 2019, Phil Tapia signed Form 7.02 certifying under penalty of perjury that the work created no conflict of interest.

Exhibit 01, The Contract→
Originals

The documents