As Richmond City Council wrestles with the critical task of completing a budget for the city for 2015-16, we call on Mayor Dwight C. Jones to address unsettling issues regarding the expensive outsourcing of city work to outside companies.

Recent reports reveal that one such firm, AECOM, an engineering and design firm, has been paid $12 million since late 2009 to manage the construction of the four newest school buildings.

That’s not to design or build, but to simply manage the projects.

The city reportedly has extended AECOM’s contract for a sixth year to work on such projects as the Stone Brewery planned for Fulton and the redevelopment of the Intermediate Terminal area along the James River.

With the extension, AECOM could rake in close to another $8 million.

Much of the public focus on AECOM’s work for the city has spotlighted one of its subcontractors, Johnson Inc., a well-respected, minority-owned Richmond marketing and public relations firm.

While Johnson Inc. and its consulting branch, JMI, garnered about 25 percent of AECOM’s take from the city, questions have arisen about the $60,000 cost associated with the firm’s PR efforts on behalf of Mayor Jones to unveil the new Huguenot High School.

Yes, $60,000 seems to be an extraordinary amount to spend on pomp and ceremony to open a school, even if Huguenot is the first high school built in the city in more than 40 years.

But the real question is this: Why are we, the taxpayers, paying $12 million to an outside company to do the jobs of project managers and public relations professionals already on the city payroll?

One such pro, Tammy Hawley, press secretary for Mayor Jones, received an 18 percent pay hike in the last year, boosting her salary to $123,971.

At a recent City Council meeting, schoolteachers, parents and public school supporters talked about the critical need for more money to shore up dilapidated buildings and to bolster academic performance efforts to aid 24,000 Richmond Public Schools students.

At the same meeting, several police officers also made impassioned pleas for pay raises for the city’s public safety employees, including firefighters. Under Mayor Jones’ budget proposal, veteran officers would receive less than a 1 percent raise.

We ask Mayor Jones: When such essential needs exist, why give millions to AECOM when city employees already making top dollar can do the job?

Rather than scapegoating Johnson Inc., which was taking its orders from the customer — Mayor Jones and the City of Richmond — City Council should investigate the arrangement with AECOM that raises eyebrows and many more questions.

Among them:

Who was responsible for extending AECOM’s contract?

Is it too late to pull the plug?

How many more millions of dollars are being paid to how many more firms, including nonprofits, for work that could be performed in-house by city workers?

Who is monitoring the contracts and the performance to see that the city’s actual needs are met?

Transparency and accountability should be the watchwords of this and subsequent city administrations.

What we don’t need, particularly in these critical economic times, is for precious city resources to be misdirected by poor decision-making, or worse, cronyism.

We call on Mayor Jones and City Council to act like the money they are allocating is coming out of their own pockets because for them, as well as the rest of us taxpayers, it is.