The Chattanooga City Council wants outside help researching zoning, housing development tax breaks and other matters upon which members might vote.
In November, Chattanoogans voted to amend the city charter to do away with a requirement that the city council hire a legislative management analyst, giving them more flexibility to use the position's $70,000 salary for other support needs. Thomas Tansil, who held the analyst job last, left the position a year ago.
In a recent meeting, the council voted 8-1 to use the money for professional services instead of returning it to the city's general fund. Councilman Jerry Mitchell, who leads a special committee exploring the issue, cast the sole opposing vote.
"I acted in good faith," Mitchell said. "I said I wanted to give the money back from the beginning, and I still want to give the money back."
Mitchell said council members' feedback showed they wanted someone to help them make intelligent decisions on assorted legislation that may come across their desks.
The council has not yet defined what professional services will look like for the body. They have discussed options ranging from hiring consultant law firms to using interns specializing in public policy and administration.
"Does that mean a research person, does that mean independent legal counsel, does that mean any kind of service that we want independent of ours or administrative staff?" Councilwoman Carol Berz asked.
Councilman Chip Henderson said he thought the council would tap a list of approved consultants.
"I guess in my mind we would create a list of firms that we would send out an RFQ [request for quotation] that we could have on record that we could do business with these individual firms," Henderson said.
While requests for pricing quotes would not necessarily be required for expenditures less than $25,000, it's a good idea, Mitchell said.
"Certainly from the public's standpoint, yes, we certainly want to do a process that's very public and come up with some names and choose those names through some criteria," he said. "It makes us look like we're protecting the taxpayers' money."
Councilman Yusuf Hakeem asked his colleagues to consider using a group of pre-qualified firms on a rotating basis, like some city departments do.
"This needs a lot of fleshing out," council Chairman Moses Freeman said, citing the need to determine who "triggers the decision" about who might perform work at the request of a particular council member.
Contact staff writer Paul Leach at 423-757-6481 or pleach@timesfreepress.com. Follow him on Twitter @pleach_tfp.