The D.C. City Council is currently holding public hearings on Mayor Adrian Fenty’s bold plan to take over the city’s long-troubled schools. However, as is often the case with controversial issues, key decision-makers appear to have already made up their minds. Public input becomes an annoying after-thought.
Parents and educators know this, of course, which is why they accused Council members of “steamrolling” themWednesday by attempting to act on the takeover plan before new members from Wards 4 and 7 could be seated. After all, they represent two areas of the city that will be most affected by the change. But it hardly matters because the takeover was already a fait accompli.
The Council should also be holding hearings on a disturbing recent report from its own task force documenting major violations in contracting procedures by city employees. The task force found procurement rules are “regularly ignored” and the culprits are not punished because there hasn’t been a Chief Procurement Officer in charge for the past two years.
These are not minor matters of uncrossed T’s or undotted I’s. Led by former city auditor Matthew Watson, the task force reported that city employees not only neglected to follow well-established procurement rules, they often ignored them altogether in failing to account for some $34.3 million.
Given the city’s sorry procurement record, how can Mayor Fenty guarantee that $2 billion in school construction money won’t disappear down the same black hole of waste and fraud? His only argument now is to point out that the District of Columbia Public School’s track record is even worse than city government’s. Along with the Health Dept., according to the task force, DCPS is responsible for nearly half of all improperly awarded contracts.
DCPS has also refused to comply with numerous Freedom of Information requests sent last November by Examiner reporter Bill Myers — including one for a list of all executives the school system hired, promoted or gave bonuses to while enrollment was dropping to its current low of 55,000 students. The request was denied by the school system’s lawyer, Karen Jones Herbert, a former taxicab commissioner under Mayor Marion Barry. She stonewalled The Examiner even though the District’s own FOIA law requires all city agencies to post this public information online.
More transparency might also shed some light on why the three-year-old Kelly Miller Middle School already needs more than $5 million to repair its plumbing, roof and interior, as the Washington City Paper recently reported.
Chief Financial Officer Natwar Gandhi claims he repeatedly tried to include the Board of Education in a unified city audit, but didn’t have the statutory authority to demand compliance. Not even the CFO is willing to stick his hand in the procurement snake pit. But the buck should stop at the mayor’s office. Before Mayor Fenty is allowed to take over the city’s failing schools, he must tell city residents exactly how he intends to clean up this mess.
