Caltrain Scrapped a $1.4M Consultant Contract. Then Came the Uproar

The job — Deputy Executive Director, Project Delivery and Caltrain Modernization — merges two former chief-level positions, chief of design and construction and chief of modernization, into one post overseeing Caltrain’s more than $10 billion capital program. Bullock’s responsibilities are “largely consistent” with what she was already doing as an interim consultant, but the difference is that the agency now holds that expertise in-house, Lieberman said. The consolidation will save more than $400,000 a year, he said.

Lieberman rejected any link between the move and the recent attention from local news outlets.

“Any suggestion that this decision was made in response to recent scrutiny reflects an inaccurate timeline,” he said, adding that Caltrain decided nearly a year ago to combine the two roles and posted the deputy job in October 2025.

He cast the shift as part of a broader effort to lean less on outside consultants and to “grow long-term in-house technical knowledge,” and said Caltrain’s professional-services budget will fall to $8 million in fiscal 2027 from $10.2 million in fiscal 2025.

Bullock’s pay first drew attention after public records showed she earned more than $800,000 in 2025 across a series of interim roles. In April, with the deputy job still open, Caltrain kept her on under a contract amendment worth up to $1.4 million. Less than two months later, she took the permanent job. In her first year, she is also eligible for, but not guaranteed, a $20,000 performance bonus at six, 12 and 18 months, Lieberman said.

Consultants are common at transit agencies and can cost less than employees because the agency avoids pensions, healthcare benefits and other long-term costs.

Those savings tend to necessitate, for time-limited, competitive bids for project work. Critics say Bullock has effectively held senior leadership at the agency for close to two decades, largely as a consultant, and that several of her engagements were not competitively bid — a characterization Caltrain disputes.

Audrey Brook, Caltrain’s former director of capital program delivery, wrote in a November letter to the agency’s board that Caltrain had “paid consultant rates for nearly 18 years for the same leadership.” She wrote that the agency filled the role she reported to “through a closed, non-competitive process that bypassed HR policy,” and warned that such actions “waste public money and erode trust among both staff and taxpayers.”

Brook has also sued Caltrain and its governing board, the Peninsula Corridor Joint Powers Board. Her petition, filed in San Mateo County Superior Court in January, asked a judge to order a hearing over what she said was her forced departure, and levels separate allegations against Bullock.

Lieberman said Caltrain “conducted an open and competitive recruitment” for the deputy job that drew more than 50 applicants and included interviewers from outside agencies. He said the agency has denied Brook’s claims and “will vigorously defend itself,” but declined to say more, citing the pending case. Bullock has not responded to KQED’s request for comment.

Caltrain, like other local public transit agencies, has struggled financially since the pandemic upended commuting, even as ridership rebounds — the agency reported a 33% jump in riders in March, among its strongest months since 2020.

In November, voters across five counties will decide on the sales tax Caltrain said it needs to avoid cutting weekend and evening service.