$4.2 million engagement to review $3.8 million engagement that reviewed a $2.1 million engagement
The Consultation Economy
NEW YORK — The Office of Management and Budget confirmed this week that it has retained McKinsey-adjacent firm Clarity Partners LLC at a cost of $4.2 million to evaluate the findings of a 2023 engagement by Strategy Bridge Group, which was itself hired for $3.8 million to assess the value of a 2021 report produced by Nexus Advisory for $2.1 million.
The original $2.1 million report recommended hiring a consultant. City records indicate this recommendation was acted upon promptly.
The Scope of Work
Clarity Partners’ contract specifies a six-month review culminating in a “findings document” and a “roadmap for actionable implementation,” phrases that appear verbatim in both previous contracts and which Budget Director Conrad Overhead describes as “industry standard language that means what it sounds like, mostly.”
Consultant accountability advocate Marjorie Overhead-Cost obtained the contracts through a Freedom of Information request and noted that all three firms share two board members, an address in Delaware, and a commitment to the phrase “stakeholder alignment,” which appears forty-seven times across the three documents.
What Has Improved
The original 2021 report concerned the city’s outdated procurement system. As of this week, the procurement system remains outdated. The three reports documenting this fact cost $10.1 million combined, which is $800,000 more than it would cost to replace the procurement system, a figure the Office of Management and Budget says it plans to include in the Clarity Partners report as context. Clarity Partners will charge additionally for the context.
SOURCE: https://bohiney.com