Their Cost Triples, But City Won’t Disclose What The CPAs Say About School District Separation

Remember the drive to divorce Malibu out of the Santa Monica school district???

Malibu’s city council will meet Monday.

One of the items on the agenda is new contract with consultants … a group called Ryland School Business Consulting.

There has been a bit of a cost blowout on this contract.

This service was supposed to cost $24,960.

They are now overshooting that by almost 200 percent.

The bill has now grown to 73 thousand dollars.

This comes at a time that the city manager is cutting the city budget … and reassigning city employees from their regular jobs to replace consultants in other areas.

But this group of Certified Public Accountants … based in Sacramento … has not only escaped those layoffs … it is tripling its charge to the city.

So … what service are they providing??

The city manager says Ryland School Consulting is providing the city attorney and city council with financial analysis … as the city continues to negotiate with Santa Monica school officials over a possible Malibu divorce.

The city says Ryland has been analyzing the the financial analysis conducted by a different city consultant … Kirk-Carter and Associates … on behalf of the City.

Also … Ryland is crunching the numbers on the SMMUSD budget, and analyzing the financial separation proposed by the Santa Monica interests.

The city manager … Reva Feldman … says the Ryland consultants have presented the School District Separation Ad Hoc Committee with a summary of its findings.

And the two city council members are “pleased” with the findings.

What were those findings?

What was the summary?

Attorney-client privilege … says the city manager.

Because that ad hoc committee has two city council members … it did not have to meet in public.

And as the city manager says all the findings and summaries were oral – not in writing – there is no paper trail for the public to read.

And although the city manager calls this report covered by “attorney clinet privilege” – Ryland does not have any attorneys on their staff – according to their web site.

They are all C P As.

But Feldman says their report to the city cannot be made public … because Ryland is providing data to the city attorney.

So now … the city council is now being asked to cover a 51 thousand dollar  contract blowout for this second set of consultants …

Who are analyzing a report from an earlier set of consultants.

And whose report is also not being released to the public.

The city council will vote on the nearly-200 percent cost overrun Monday.