City Administrator Allen Lew was slammed in a recent audit for constructing an “opaque” record keeping system and allowing a conflict of interest involving $15 million in payments to be made under Lew’s watch when he was the director of the District’s school modernization office. “It appears [the Office of Public Education Facilities Modernization] deliberately set up their record keeping system to obstruct transparency of and accountability for its use of capital funds on [D.C. schools] facility construction and modernization projects,” D.C. Auditor Deborah Nichols wrote.
Lew took the helm of OPEFM when it was created in 2007 to oversee the 15-year, $3.5 billion school modernization program. Vincent Gray appointed him as city administrator when Gray was sworn in as mayor in January. Lew declined to comment Tuesday through a spokesman but in an 11-page response to the audit said he was employing “best business practices of both the public and private sectors” when running the office and developing his record keeping system.
According to the audit, Lew hired the law firm Leftwich & Ludaway to provide procurement services, and a partner there, Tom Bridenbaugh, served as a procurement manager in OPEFM. Bridenbaugh is the son-in-law of an executive with Turner Construction Co., which was hired by OPEFM to modernize the schools. From 2008 to 2009, the years covered by the audit, the District approved $15 million in payments to Turner Construction for school construction projects. Part of Bridenbaugh’s job was to issue the change orders for the increases to the construction bills, and at least one of those orders was one for $750,000 issued to Turner.
Nichols advised in her order that OPEFM should prevent Bridenbaugh from issuing orders for Turner “in order to remove any real or perceived conflict of interest.”
Lew said in his response that at times OPEFM “overlooked” policies meant to prevent any perceived conflict of interest and has reissued instructions to employees to follow the policies.
“OPEFM intentionally dispensed with much of the bureaucracy and top-hamper that traditionally impeded progress, and instead assembled a highly qualified team of construction and development professionals with proven track records of implementing sophisticated projects,” Lew wrote.
