By Antonio D. French
Filed Tuesday, June 6 at 10:01 PM
School board member Peter Downs made a motion at tonight's administrative meeting to have the superintendent look at cancelling the district's contract with controversial maintenance contractor Sodexho.
By a vote of 4-2, the board voted to add to next week's regular board meeting agenda a resolution to ask Superintendent Creg Williams to come back to the board by September with a plan on how to bring the services currently being performed by Sodexho back in-house.
Voting against the motion were board members Robert Archibald and Ron Jackson. Joining Downs voting in favor were Donna Jones, Bill Purdy and board president Veronica O'Brien.
O'Brien voted against Down's original motion to have Williams come back to the board with a plan in one month. Williams said that he needed more time to review such a large contract.
Downs also made a motion to add to next week's agenda a resolution to ask Williams to take another look at the administrative budget of the district to see it there is any area where money can be saved. Downs said doing so would set a good example when principals, teachers, and support staff are being asked to tighten their belts.
That motion passed by the same vote. Board member Flint Fowler left the meeting early and was not present at the time of either vote.
Check back tomorrow for a video report on the looming financial crisis facing SLPS.
3 Comments:
The state of the school district is very worrisome. I posted a blog about the looming insolvency of the district on my blog earlier today (http://tinyurl.com/mvljy). But what is more worrisome are the votes against fiscal responsibility by two of the School Board members. Why would any member of the School Board vote against reviewing the administrative budget for possible reductions in spending or against reviewing a service contract that costs the district annually over $23 million?
Wednesday, June 07, 2006 1:26:00 AM
Moreover, the Sodexho contract was amended to include construction management services, without going through a public bid process as required by state law and Board Policy. Why would Board members refuse to terminate the ILLEGAL Sodexho contract, which costs the district annually over $23 million? Seems totally irresponsible. Are these Board members protecting Sodexho?
Wednesday, June 07, 2006 9:08:00 AM
This is crazy. Why would any board member not want to, at least review anything that costs 23 mil. The original adminstrators and board members who wanted to eliminate the inhouse services "cooked the books" to make it look like a good deal. I don't blame Sodexho for doing what they are suppose to do, making money is why they are in business. I blame those who enable them under the guise of "the best interest of the children". The now eliminated B&G dept used to spend about 6 mil on labor cost, 4 mil on supplies including their own transportion needs, and picked up a lot of the costs associated with capital improvements. Throw in utilities and sure the amount exceeds 23 mil. Sodexho now gets 23 mil for labor only (including their own transportation cost). A far cry from 6 million 2 years ago. They also get paid extra for the capital improvements and charge all their supplies to SLPS. SLPS pays for the utilities which used to be charged against B&G even though B&G never processed the payments. Please do not read this and shake your head in disgust...that will do no good. Call for a review of the pre-privitization budget and expeditures for B&G and let the number speak for themselves. B&G was short on staff before Sodexho drastically cut the staff. This is not my opinion. There are professional groups which have the data available that will show national averages (which are artifically low due to SLPS and several others). Yes the old system needed fixing. Now that the old Supintendent and the Human Resource Director are gone and can now longer change interview scores to hire their friends against the recommendation of the now RIFFED (fired) industry experts, maybe it can be operated with some level of effiency. There are still some folks at SLPS who know how the budget was structured, and I don't blame them for keeping their mouths shut but I'm sure they could (happily) pull out the real numbers if a board member wanted them.
Thursday, June 08, 2006 6:44:00 AM
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