City relies too much on engineering firms
Despite the recommendations of the Charbonneau commission report, the city is still heavily dependent on engineering consulting firms. The value of contracts has increased eightfold since 2012.
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Kate
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Nicholas 23:36 on 2025-05-29 Permalink
It absolutely can make sense, if you’re doing a unique, small project, to hire a firm with expertise: maybe you’re checking to see if your historic windmill or canal locks need work, and you won’t do that again for decades. But everyday things like roadways, sewers and waterworks, bridges, building construction, etc.: all that stuff should be happening all year, every year. And even a large unique project, if it takes a decade then hire some full time staff. The consultants have an incentive to increase billable hours. Not that city workers sometimes don’t have bad incentives themselves, but get people working for us.