DEI consultant recommended to city by NC League of Municipalities
This week, Davidson Local’s Public Records Request seeking answers about the City of Lexington’s choosing Keep Evolving Consulting to evaluate and offer recommendations regarding their DEI initiatives has been fulfilled. After the city council’s meeting on November 22, we began asking questions about the selection process of KE.
In our article on December 8, we shared KE was paid $23,638.43 for its professional services related to the DEI evaluation. The consulting services were performed from June 13, 2022 through November 14, 2022. As a result of these answers, additional questions arose and were submitted to the City. They were: 1) Why was there no RFP for the DEI evaluation and 2) How was Keep Evolving Consulting chosen since there was no bid?
The answer we received from the City is as follows:
“Keep Evolving Consulting is a service contract. Under North Carolina law, service contracts, other than those for construction or repair work, are not covered by the competitive bidding laws. It’s not that the statute exempts service contracts; they simply are not covered by the two categories of contracts that are listed in the bidding statutes. Therefore, contracts for professional services such as those with consultants fall outside of the competitive bidding statutes and no RFP is required.
Kamella Emmanuel with Keep Evolving Consulting was recommended by the North Carolina League of Municipalities as one of the premiere experts in DEI training, initiatives and development in North Carolina municipalities. Among other things, she specializes in DEI training and development. She is a certified DEI professional and has extensive experience providing consulting services and coaching to public and private sector leadership and diversity training, cultural competencies, inclusive recruiting and organizational change.
Events during a fiscal year may cause greater or less spending than anticipated for some activities, or needs may arise which were unforeseen at the time of budget formulation and adoption. North Carolina law provides that the budget may be amended at any time after its adoption. City Council took action on November 14, 2022 to amend the City’s budget, providing additional budgetary authority to cover these expenditures. (See N.C.G.S. §159-15).”
Our most up to date article about DEI within the City can be found here.
Stay tuned to Davidson Local for further developments.
