The Haines Borough paid biomass consultant Darsie Culbeck more than $3,600 in October, including $75 per hour for 16 hours traveling to and from his seasonal residence in Mexico for a “field trip” to Anchorage and Fairbanks.
Culbeck billed $1,200 in October for time he spent traveling and $1,800 for the three-day “field trip,” according to borough financial records. The borough also paid for his $882 plane ticket, hotel stays in Anchorage, Glennallen and Tok, $110 in taxi fares from his Sayulita residence to the Puerto Vallarta airport, and $250 for food.
The borough also paid Culbeck $150 for time he spent negotiating his own consulting contract, and approved 12.5 hours of work that exceeded the amount stipulated by his borough contract.
Culbeck made another trip from Mexico to Haines and back for a Nov. 10 Biomass Advisory Committee meeting, though he hasn’t yet submitted a November invoice to the borough.
During the October “Biomass Decision Makers Field Trip,” loosely organized by the Alaska Energy Authority and U.S. Forest Service, a group of people interested in biomass rented a couple of vans and drove from Anchorage to Fairbanks over Oct. 5-7, stopping to tour biomass sites along the way, said AEA project manager Jim Vail.
The group, including Culbeck, stopped in Kenny Lake to observe a wood pellet boiler, in Gulkana to see a cordwood boiler and in Mentasta Lake to see a woodchip boiler. The group also stopped at schools in Delta and Tok to see chip boilers, Vail said.
Culbeck billed the borough for 24 hours of work, or $1,800, for time spent on the field trip.
The borough contracted with Culbeck from July 6 through Sept. 30 to work for $75 an hour handling the municipality’s $1.2 million biomass grant from the Alaska Energy Authority Renewable Energy Fund, a project aimed at installing wood pellet boilers in borough buildings.
That contract authorized no more than 45 hours of work during the term of the contract, though the borough paid Culbeck for 57.5 hours during that period.
Borough manager David Sosa extended that contract through March 1, and increased the scope considerably, allowing Culbeck to bill the borough up to 70 hours per month.
Travel time can be billed up to eight hours per day, according to the contract. The contract again provides for an extension possibility.
When asked this week why he decided to extend Culbeck’s contract and keep him on the project, Sosa said, “He has a lot of knowledge about it, and he demonstrated recently he was able to bring together a lot of people from around the state who can provide some input and keep focus moving on this project.”
But Sosa said he doesn’t want the borough paying for Culbeck’s travel to and from Mexico on a regular basis.
“As a normal matter of course, I don’t want to do that,” Sosa said. “In fact, this was designed so that he could telecommute and handle this. And most of the meetings that he will be addressing will be things that he can do over the Internet or over the phone. But there were a couple of meetings where having his presence here and his ability to go around and meet with a number of participants was very helpful.”
Culbeck said in an email he believes the borough and Alaska Energy Authority are receiving “a good value for my service.”
“I am recognized in Alaska as a biomass champion, and have spoken at both the Alaska Wood Energy Conference and Alaska Municipal League on the topic of Biomass and Economic Development,” Culbeck wrote. “I have excellent relationships with the biomass players in the state and have convinced these experts to help advise us at no cost to the borough. The biomass meeting two weeks ago is one example of this. Those people traveled/called in at their own expense to give us their time and share their knowledge, and they continue to do so.”
Culbeck also pointed to his authoring of the $1.2 million AEA biomass grant application, his understanding of the project’s scope, and his knowledge of the workings of the borough government as valuable experience.
He also saved the borough “a considerable amount” with the purchase of three used biomass boilers from the Coast Guard in Sitka, which cost the borough $60,000 instead of the $450,000 retail value. One of the boilers had exploded when it was installed at the Coast Guard’s AIRSTA Hangar in 2012, but the boiler manufacturer Unilux has since refurbished and reprogrammed the boiler.
“Any consultant with this experience would charge for their time/travel expenses and I believe that is fair. Of note, all my travel has been pre-approved in writing by the Haines Borough and Alaska Energy Authority,” Culbeck said.
Culbeck’s contract is funded with the AEA Renewable Energy Fund grant, though manager Sosa acknowledged that is still money the borough could otherwise be using to further the project. The Renewable Energy Fund is financed through the Alaska Legislature each year.
“Yes, I understand people are going to look at this and say, ‘Why aren’t we spending this money on something else?’ But you always want to have the right person in place doing the particular job in order to generate the outcomes you are looking for,” Sosa said.
Assembly member Ron Jackson said this week he was surprised to learn the borough was paying for Culbeck to fly to and from Mexico.
“It’s kind of shocking to me that we would pay someone to travel to their job, which I think is in Haines,” Jackson said. “It doesn’t feel right to me to do that.”
Jackson said he could understand paying for Culbeck to fly from the job site – Haines – to a conference in Sitka, for example. “To be on vacation somewhere in another part of the world and fly back at our expense just seems very… generous,” Jackson said.
Asked why the public facilities director or some other borough employee couldn’t just handle the biomass grant instead of contracting with Culbeck, Sosa said: “We could have someone on staff do it. Do they have the same level of knowledge as Mr. Culbeck on this particular subject? Do they have the same number of contacts with the people who are going to be providing us the grant monies? Do they have the same network of individuals that can help move this project forward?”
Sosa pointed out that the borough hires individuals outside of the administration to work on a variety of projects. “When we do a road construction project, (facilities director) Brad (Ryan) is not standing out there watching the teams work on the road. We hire someone as a contractor who can be out there to represent us.”
When asked why he authorized Culbeck to charge 1.5 hours, or $112.50, of pre-contract negotiations before the contract had even been signed or agreed upon, Sosa said it balanced out with free consultation Culbeck had been providing previously.
“It’s an hour and a half. Was he also doing other work for us that he didn’t charge us for before that? Yes. Has he always been on hand for phone calls and responding to emails when we had other questions before that? Yes.”
Culbeck charged another half-hour, or $37.50, for contract renegotiation.
Culbeck, in addition to writing the AEA grant, has championed the use of wood pellets and worked intensively on getting the pilot-program pellet boiler installed at the Haines Senior Center in November 2012. Culbeck left his job as executive assistant in May 2014 and passed up a job offer for community and economic development director in September 2014.