How Class Size Matters helped the city save $727 million, and our plea to the Mayor how to use these funds to give an early Xmas present to NYC kids
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.
Though no other details were provided to the public in advance, (something Helen Rosenthal, head of the City Council Contract committee, and I had already publicly complained about) I looked up the name of the company that was to be awarded this huge contract. After googling "Custom Computer Specialists",I found a link to City Council testimony that I had given in October 2011, about the many wasteful and corrupt DOE technology contracts.
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.
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 NYC Public School Parents: How Class Size Matters helped the city save $727 million, and our plea to the Mayor how to use these funds to give an early Xmas present to NYC kids:
