Dillon Moran’s Restorative Justice Fiasco

This blogger doesn’t know where to begin describing the history of the city’s attempt at “restorative justice” as mismanaged by Saratoga Springs Accounts Commissioner Dillon Moran.

On May 4, 2023, the City Council established a panel that was charged with seeking “…to define via community input and dialogue a ‘Saratoga Springs’ Restorative Justice Program.” The panel ended up being called the Restorative Justice Panel (RJP).

This panel met six times from October 11, 2023, to December 13, 2023. The meetings were chaotic and confusing. The RJP appears to have disintegrated because there is no record of them meeting after December, 2023. According to this blogger’s calculation, as of this writing, the committee has not met in thirteen months.

The Council resolution required the RJP to issue a report to the Council by December 19, 2023. There is no record that this report was ever submitted.

Coincidentally, on the date their report was due, the City Council decided to hire a consulting firm to assist the RJP, which was struggling with even defining what restorative justice meant, let alone what a restorative justice program for Saratoga Springs would look like. The Council approved a contract with the consulting firm Ives-Fenton Consulting and Training Services which, confusingly, is sometimes referred to also as Ives-Fenton Counseling Services. The contract was put forward by Accounts Commissioner Dillon Moran and he became responsible for overseeing its execution.

In their contract, Ives-Fenton committed to, among other things, forming a “Reinvention Plan Implementation Team” to do some kind of ongoing analysis of the fifty-point plan adopted by the Saratoga Springs Police Reform Task Force in 2021:

…we will work collaboratively with the Reinvention Implemntation Team to design and publish a public and frequently updated “Report Card” detailing actual numerical and qualatiative progress in implementing with fidelity, each of the fifty points.

This blogger can find no record of a Team being formed or of this “report card” ever being published.

According to the consultants’ billing, their last contact with the purported RJP was with its co-chair, Camille Daniels, on August 15, 2024. By this blogger’s calculations, that was approximately five months ago.

Here is a complete list of the activities they have billed the city for. Their last submission was for a September 4 two hour email, text, and phone discussion.

Record Of Billing By Ives-Fenton

A Gross Violation of City Procurement Requirements

Ives-Fenton has only spent $3,851.25 of the $29,340 agreed to in their contract. Their contract expired on December 5, 2024.

Moran has placed on his agenda for Tuesday, January 7, 2025, Council meeting a resolution to “extend” their contract until the end of 2025.

The problem is that you cannot “extend” a contract that has expired. Moran could have done so before the expiration date, but he did not.

In addition, Moran cannot even get his dates right.

There was no contract entered into with Ives-Fenton on December 19, 2024. The agreement was approved on December 19, 2023.

Readers might accuse the blogger of nit-picking, but this is a formal contract with the city and should be accurate.

There is also the question of why the consulting firm signed the document on December 22, 2024.

STOP!!!!!!!

Given the legal issues and troubling record of the RJP, there is no way that the city should approve the extension of this contract at their meeting on January 7, 2025.

The gross failure on Moran’s part to manage this project properly is troubling in and of itself. More scary is what this says about the management of the Accounts Department. This blogger just happened to have this negligence called to his attention. It is reasonable to assume this is just the tip of the iceberg. Who knows what other more serious failures are hidden in Moran’s office that may cost the city in the future?