Missouri City City Council will hear proposals from three executive search firms at the May 4 council meeting. After council receives the presentations, it will move forward with hiring one firm to assist in the search for a new city manager.
The three firms council will hear presentations from are Baker Tilly, Strategic Government Resources and GovHR USA, said Martin Russell, Missouri City’s human resources director. These three were selected from a pool of nine executive search firms that responded to the city’s request for proposal.
Members of council graded each of the nine firms against a matrix that scored them against a number of criteria including cost.
At the April 20 City Council meeting, Council Member Vashaundra Edwards requested that each of the original nine firms submit an itemized list of the cost of their services since City Council may opt to not utilize every service a firm offers.
“It was kind of hard for me to gauge the pricing without having a complete breakdown on what they provide,” Edwards said.
Although there was some discussion as to whether members of council should rescore firms once they receive this itemized list, Council Member Cheryl Sterling expressed concern this would exhaust a significant amount of time that could be dedicated to actually searching for a city manager.
Sterling was the only council member to vote against Edwards’ motion to receive the itemized price breakdown from all nine firms.
Shannon Pleasant, Missouri City’s purchasing and risk manager, said she will request the breakdown from the nine firms April 21. The firms will have until the end of the day April 22 to submit such a breakdown, and council members will have until April 23 to change their score for any firm.
“If you don't send anything back to Shannon by Thursday, we're going to just move forward,” Mayor Yolanda Ford said to the rest of council. “If you do have a change, go ahead and send it to Shannon so she can retaliate the scores. I really don't think anything's gonna change, but I want to be fair though.”
Pleasant said once council selects a firm they will be able negotiate the final cost of the contract along with the services the firm will provide the city.
City Council also discussed the search for a new city manager and potentially any applications already received directly by the city in closed session April 20.
Missouri City is in need of a permanent city manager after council voted 4-3 in February to terminate former City Manager Anthony Snipes’ contract with the city.
