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发帖数: 19398 | 1 By Diane Ravitch
Leonie Haimson tells the story about her discovery that the New York City
Department of Education was about to award a multi-million dollar contract
to a tech company that had been previously been involved in scandal. When
you read this account, you will understand the importance of citizen
vigilance. Who else but Leonie Haimson would lounge around on a lazy Sunday
afternoon reading the list of DOE contracts due to be voted on that week?
That is why you should contribute to her organization, Class Size Matters,
which operates on a tiny shoestring (I am a member of the board) and allows
Leonie to play an outsize, unpaid role in the city, state, and nation. That
shoestring is so small, it wouldn't be enough to close an infant's shoe.
Help Leonie continue to fight for students. [SEE http://nycpublicschoolparents.blogspot.com/2015/12/how-class-size-matters-helped-city-save.html AND http://www.classsizematters.org/ ]
She writes:
Last February, on a lazy Sunday afternoon, I was perusing the list of DOE
contracts due to be voted on that week by the Panel for Educational Policy.
Among the long list of contracts, I noticed a proposed contract for
equipment and internet wiring worth $1.1 billion over five years, extendable
to nine years at two billion dollars. I had never seen a DOE contract that
large before.
She googled the name of the company:
I was astonished to discover that this very same company had been involved
in a kickback scheme, robbing DOE of millions of dollars just a few years
before, according to a report from the Special Investigator's office. This
widely reported scandal subsequently sent Ross Lanham, a DOE consultant, to
jail.
I immediately blogged about my discovery, and promptly alerted Public
Advocate Tish James and Council Member Helen Rosenthal, as well as members
of the media.
On Monday, the very next day, DoE officials started getting lots of calls
from reporters. Later that day, the PEP Contract committee was due to meet
at 5 pm at Tweed, the DOE headquarters. I was sitting with a bunch of
reporters in a room in Tweed, waiting for the meeting to begin when the
reporters began getting emails from the DoE officials, announcing that that
in the last 24 hours, the contract had somehow been "re-negotiated" and
reduced by nearly half a billion dollars - with no change in the terms.
It was still going to be a ridiculously high $635 million over five years,
extendable for four more years at over $1 billion. The fact that nearly $500
million could be cut out of the contract over night was even more evidence
of how inflated the contract had been. When the Contracts committee met,
surprisingly few members asked any questions about it, except for Robert
Powell, the Bronx appointee and head of the committee....
Juan Gonzalez in the Daily News provided even more details about the
original scheme that had defrauded DOE of millions. He pointed out that the
company being awarded the contract had been the high bidder among three
companies, and that the man who was still CEO of the company, Gregory Galdi,
had set up a real estate company with Ross Lanham that was dissolved only
after Lanham's arrest.
At the subsequent PEP meeting on Wednesday evening, Helen Rosenthal and I
pleaded with Chancellor Farina and the PEP members not to allow this
unconscionable contract to be approved. The Chancellor was obdurate that "
due diligence" had been done and that awarding the contract would allow NYC
kids to be "put in the future" while now they're "struggling in the past."
The DOE official in charge, David Ross, argued that the contract had to be
rushed through in order for the city to have a chance of winning $100
million in federal E-rate funds - without mentioning that the DOE had been
cut off from this program for the last five years because of the very same
scandal that had sent Ross Lanham to jail.
I made this point when I had my two minutes to speak , and argued that by
awarding a contract to this very same company, the DOE was almost sure to be
barred from any reimbursement from the feds. I also said that with a
fraction of the amount, the DOE could double the number of schools to be
built and significantly relieve school overcrowding.
Laura Zingmond, the Manhattan PEP member, responded that there was "plenty
of money" to go around for both building more schools and awarding this
contract. Though some members expressed reservations, the PEP approved the
contract 10-1, with only Robert Powell, voting no. More on this
disappointing vote in my blog and in Schoolbook....
Then in March, a few weeks after the vote, the city cancelled the Custom
Computer Specialists contract, the first time this has ever happened in the
history of the DOE. Possibly officials were concerned about how the NYC
Comptroller and other oversight agencies would have questions about this
egregious contract....
Juan Gonzalez reports that after DOE rebid the contract and broke it into
several smaller parts, the same work and equipment will cost city taxpayers
far less: $472 million over five years, $163 million less than the
renegotiated amount and $627 million less than what Custom Computer
Specialists was originally supposed to receive before Tish James, Helen
Rosenthal and I protested. Assuming that the city is also now far likelier
to receive $100 million in federal E-rate funds, we may have helped save the
city $727 million.
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