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Kwame Contract Voted Down Again

By Antonio D. French

Filed Wednesday, May 10 at 8:23 AM

The St. Louis School Board again voted down a proposal to hire a local private firm to oversee the district's construction projects.

The one-year contract proposal came from Superintendent Creg Williams, who last month proposed virtually the same deal as a two-year agreement. Williams wanted to see the Board hire Kwame Building Group, a black-owned construction firm based in downtown St. Louis, to manage the district's air conditioning projects. The price tag for the firm's services in near $2.5 million.

Board member Bill Purdy, who has long pushed for a return to in-house maintenance, said that he'd like to see the district get the "best bang for our buck."

"We would be best to build our own in-house team to manage the HVAC," said Purdy. He said his objections to the deal was in no way a reflection upon the particular firm selected.

Recently elected board member Peter Downs, who had been criticized by another board member last month for requesting an itemized district budget, called attention to an item in that 4-inch thick document.

Downs noted that one of the schools budgeted to be air condition was Cleveland NJROTC High School, which the superintendent was now requesting to be closed. Downs asked if the district wasn't getting ahead of itself by contracting these services before the next round of school closings was announced.

The Board once again voted down the contract. The vote was 4-2, with Ron Jackson and Bob Archibald voting in favor. Board President Veronica O'Brien abstained.

1 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

"We would be best to build our own in-house team to manage the HVAC," said Purdy. He said his objections to the deal was in no way a reflection upon the particular firm selected.

I don't know about that. Building your own team can mean getting friends and neighbors on the payroll. [Not that Kwame, or whoever, can't make friends on the board.] Then, an entrenched bureaucracy is created. Then pension obligations are created and so on and so on. Under this method, you can 'fire' Kwame, or whoever, at the end of the contract and your obligations are finished.

While it may be more expensive in the short run, the longer view must be taken.

I don't know the numbers involved [building a team may be more cost effective], but building long term obligations to more workers is not something that I as a SLPS stakeholder am anxious to do.

Friday, May 12, 2006 7:28:00 AM

 

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