Bridgeport: Yet another “No-Bid” contract for a Vallas colleague comes to light… (updated 5:30pm)

Aug 16

jonpeltoBridgeport, Malloy, Paul Vallas, Stefan Pryor , , , 24 Comments

Despite numerous assurances that Team Vallas had finally revealed all the no-bid contracts that they issued to friends, colleagues and companies that Paul Vallas has done business with in the past, yet another contract has surfaced, raising the question of how many more no-bid contracts may still be tucked away someplace.

A couple of months ago, in response to demands for greater transparency, Paul Vallas and his Team decided to post, on Bridgeport’s Board of Education website, a list of the consultants that Vallas has brought in, via no-bid contracts, since he became the City’s interim superintendent of schools.

The list included well over a dozen names, but failed to identify what each consultant was charging, or the fact that many of them actually worked for Vallas’ private consulting company, “The Vallas Group.”

A little more digging determined that these Vallas consultants had been charging the Bridgeport School System between $500 and $900 a day for their services and that none of them earned their contracts through a competitive bidding process.

Now it turns out that at least one other Vallas friend and colleague was under contract, and this one was charging Bridgeport’s taxpayer more than any of the others.

With a per diem rate of $850 and a “travel allowance” of $300 per day, Cozette Buckney, was pulling in $1,150 a day or the equivalent of $5,750 for a five day work week.

Team Vallas explained that Buckney was able to complete her scope of work in only 13 days and is “no longer contracted with the district.”

Their argument seems to be that $13,650 for 13 days of work is a bargain and, furthermore, Team Vallas didn’t need to reveal the information because she was “no longer” on contract.

Putting aside the question of whether anyone being paid with taxpayer funds should make an annualized rate of over $275,000, the far more significant question is why this consultant’s name wasn’t on the list that was released and whether there are still other names hidden away.

So let’s try again…

The taxpayers of Bridgeport and Connecticut deserve to know how many no-bid consultants have been brought in to Bridgeport’s $229,000 interim superintendent, and how much these consultants were paid.

Since the vast majority of Bridgeport’s educational costs are picked up by the state, if Vallas refuses to come clean, then Governor Malloy or the Governor’s Commissioner of Education, Stefan Pryor, should step in and force Team Vallas to provide the information.

If the Governor and Commissioner refuse the task, then the State Auditors need to act.

The people of Connecticut deserve no less.

Below is the earlier chart of the no-bid consultants with the new information appended to it.

NAME

TITLE

DAILY RATE

SALARY

Paul Vallas

Superintendent of Schools

$229,000

Dr. Sandra Kase

Chief Administrative Officer

$900 Per Day

$220,000+

Marlene Siegel

Chief Financial Officer

$800 Per Day

$197,000+

Don Kennedy

Chief Operating Officer

$900 Per Day

$220,000+

Don Cochran

Executive Dir. Human Resources

NOT LISTED

NOT LISTED

Shively Willingham

Special Assistant to the Superintendent

$500 Per Day

$136,000+

Marcel Kshensky

Grievance Officer (50 days)

$500 Per Day

$25,000

Lawrence Block

Mentor/Professional Development (90 days)

$750 Per Day

$67,500

Maria DiMarco

Mentor/Professional Development (90 days)

$800 per Day

$72,000

Wendy Shapiro

Mentor/Professional Development (90 days)

$700 Per Day

$63,000

Anne Gargan

Mentor/Professional Development (90 days)

$800 Per Day

$72,000

Edvige Mancuso

Mentor/Professional Development (90 days)

$800 Per Day

$72,000

Ozborne Wright

Mentor/Professional Development (30 days)

$500 Per Day

$15,000

Wendy Gussack

Curriculum Development (20 days)

$600 Per Day

$10,000

Cozette Buckney

Labor Issues, Review and Follow up on all grievances

(13 days)

$850 + $350 Travel Allowance Per Day

$13,650

To see the materials that Team Vallas did post, see the following two links: http://www.bridgeportedu.com/docs/HomePage/2012-2013/BPSCentralOfficeAdministrativeRolesOverview.pdf and http://www.bridgeportedu.com/docs/HomePage/2012-2013/BPSEducationMentorsOverview.pdf

 

Thanks to a reader and fellow advocate journalist, we have the following update:

From a 2008 Philadelphia based blog ( http://wecouldbefamous.blogspot.com/2008/02/how-to-grade-rsds-homework-part-1.html)

“Paul Vallas does not work alone. He is known to rely heavily on a team of close advisers that have followed him from Chicago to Philadelphia and now to New Orleans. They were paid handsomely in Philadelphia. Who did he bring with him and what do their salaries look like?

In Philadelphia, one aide close to Vallas was found to have billed the School District of Philadelphia for over $70,000 in expenses over four years for flights to and from Chicago, Ford Mustang rentals, hotel room service, hotel gym memberships, and an apartment in Philadelphia’s upscale Center City neighborhood.

It was later revealed that while she was working 20 hours per week at $75,000 per year in Philadelphia, she simultaneously was employed by the school district in St. Louis for 29 hours per week at $69,000 annually.

Cozette Buckney was ordered to repay the Philly district $19,000 for inappropriately billed expenses.

[The dual-employment story] came as news to the president of the St. Louis school board, who said Friday that the board would investigate it…

Buckney was hired by St. Louis Superintendent Creg [sic] E. Williams, who worked for Vallas as chief academic officer in Philadelphia before taking the job in St. Louis. Like Buckney, Williams worked for Vallas when he ran the Chicago public schools. Williams was not available for comment…

Buckney said she was leaving her St. Louis job in July. She said the controversy over her expenses and her dual employment “is just tearing me apart. It hurts me to my heart,” she said.

“I’m going to take a vacation – I need one after this.”

A quick Google search reveals that Cozette Buckney did go on vacation after she left her St. Louis job in July.

It was a paid vacation.

To Louisiana.

…the minutes from Louisiana Board of Elementary and Secondary Education meeting on August 17th, you’ll see that the state retroactively approved a $38,400 contract for Cozette Buckney to provide consulting services to the RSD from July through October of 2007… the minutes from the October 18th meeting of the Board, you’ll see that Buckney’s contract was extended through the end of January at additional cost of $14,400 so that she could continue to provide consulting services to the district. That’s a total salary of $52,800 for six months of consulting work.”

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  • Egyptian4

    Why aren’t Bridgeport taxpayers up in arms about this, especially in light of the state takeover of their ELECTED Board of Education, paired with the fact that Mr. Vallas has ordered new textbooks and curricular programs to the tune of hundreds of thousands of dollars?

    • Bill Morrison

      Why aren’t Connecticut’s voters up in arms; this affects the entire state!  Please join us to form a resistance group at Mulberry Pizza in Mannchester on Friday, August 17 at 4:00.  We will be planning demonstrations, publicity efforts, and other forms of resistance.  Parents, teachers, and community members are welcome to join.

      • Guest

        Bill,

        Manchester is so far from Bridgeport.  Is there a plan for having future meetings somewhere closer to the largest city in the state?

      • guest

        We are from all over.  It would be great to get closer to Bridgeport.  We easterners could carpool or something.

      • Linda174

        Can you recommend a place for our next meeting? A restaurant where we can talk?

      • Querculus

        Bill.  Good work.  This Bridgeport teacher will try and attend.

    • Querculus

      They believe the promises, Egyptian4.  And Linda Lambeck, the CT Post’s education reporter, reports nothing but positive things.  She presents everything as simply perfect.  

      The CT Post even posts full front page lies about teacher absence rates– claiming falsely once that 85% of Bridgeport teachers take more than 10 days off.

      • Just An Educator

        Querculus,  The 10 days absent figure may include days that teachers are required to take off for meetings and for district training and other professional development.  From the state’s perspective, the students are without their regular teachers on those days, and so the days should count.  I understand the loss of instructional time and I agree that it should be reported, but it should be reported in different categories in order to reflect the truth. 

        The alternative is to pay teachers to do the training during the summer, but this is unattractive to the district because paying a teacher during the summer is much costlier than paying a substitute teacher during the school year, that is, if the school even gets a sub that day.  Altogether too often, principals are required to combine classes when there aren’t enough subs.

      • Querculus

        No, the data was analyzed. The M$ Excel Document that was used to calculate the data actually somehow had MORE teachers absent at a number of schools than the total who were indicated as working there.

        So like 300 and 600% of teachers were absent more than 10 days. The data itself was completely aberrant.

        Bizzare.

        The CT POST did not retract its front page claim and graphic.

  • JMC

    Consultants feed, taxpayers bleed.

    • Linda174

      NCLB…. No consultant left behind
      RTTT……Race to the trough

  • Linda174

    What exactly did she do for $13,000+? What does she do about grievances and
    Labor issues? What does that mean and how do we know she did anything?
    Who really knows what services she provides? Why doesn’t the BOE ask for a
    breakdown of the hours she spent “working”?

  • Just An Educator

    http://wecouldbefamous.blogspot.com/2008/02/how-to-grade-rsds-homework-part-1.html

    Here is an interesting article about Mr. Vallas and his history of working with an entourage of people who have been with him in his other districts.  Of particular note is the reference to Cozette Buckney, whose personal expenses are quite interesting, giving new meaning to the term “colossal nerve.” 

    Note particularly this quote: “In Philadelphia, one aide close to Vallas was found to have billed the
    School District of Philadelphia for over $70,000 in expenses over four
    years for flights to and from Chicago, Ford Mustang rentals, hotel room
    service, hotel gym memberships, and an apartment in Philadelphia’s
    upscale Center City neighborhood.It was later revealed that
    while she was working 20 hours per week at $75,000 per year in
    Philadelphia, she simultaneously was employed by the school district in
    St. Louis for 29 hours per week at $69,000 annually.Cozette Buckney was ordered to repay the Philly district $19,000 for inappropriately billed expenses.”

    Mr. Vallas came to the home of P.T. Barnum believing that there really is a sucker born every minute.  (Yes, I know that Barnum never really said that, but it is often attributed to him.)

    • jonpelto

      Great work, excellent find!

      I’ll add this information to the Blog Post.

    • Castles Burning

       Amazing.  Note to all: keep on reading–straight through to the non-vacation.

      • jonpelto

        I especially liked the non-vacation part – I’ll add the whole thing to my post and re-post for the evening readers!

      • guest

        Thanks!  Incredible.

      • Linda174

        Wow! But I still don’t have a clue what function she performs. What is her area of expertise other than following Vallas around and raking in the dough?

        Does anyone know?

  • Brutus2011

    This furthers the point that our collective problem as educators in not about education, it is about money and politics–organizational, municipal, state, and federal.

    The above salary chart does not include pensions or pension payments or promises, etc. Administrative pensions are the gift that keeps on giving and is going to bankrupt some cities in the future. 

    I believe this is why there is all this sound and fury over education and reform. 

    Money–salaries and pensions–money.

    Gimme the cash!  (remember the scene in the movie “Fifth Element” when Bruce Willis’ character answers the door to confront a hilarious robber in the hall)

    Only the collective “we” are getting robbed and it is not at all hilarious.

  • Querculus

    Meanwhile, this Bridgeport teacher’s young single-full-time-income family struggles under a two year pay and step-promotion freeze– and now the threat of layoffs.  (I also wonder if I’ll be fired for writing this….)

    And Mustang-Renting consultants walk away with Bridgeport’s money– and the good Lord knows that many in Bridgeport need the money even more than my family.

  • Linda174

    From website linked below:

    Cozette Buckney’s job is to keep the union “away” from the district! She’s called his “exec. asst” because she actually manages his “real” activities like managing/sending his emails, writing responses/correspondence, etc.—he has a “fake” admin assistant too but she only handles his “day-to-day” dealings if you know what I mean. Cozette, Gary Solomon, Phil Hansen, Elizabeth Shaw, Betty Jean Wolfe, Rayne Martin…I could go on—are ALL “tied” to Vallas—via Philly/Chi-Town—PERSONALLY! 

    http://gbitchspot.com/gbitchspot/?p=1341

  • Linda174

    Back when Vallas was still an arriviste in the world of corporate “school reform,” union busting and teacher bashing, the Sun-Times (Rosalind Rossi) did a fawning profile about what a great, wonderful, and hard working guy Vallas was, quoting extensively from Vallas’s mother. That’s a sure way to get to the truth about a public figure.

    So now we flash forward to more than a decade after the original quotes from Mom, and we find the Sun-Times informing Chicago that Vallas is leaving Philadelphia to return to Chicago, again quoting Mom. Left out of the Sun-Times story was the lengthy list of scandals that are now following Vallas out of the second town he “saved” as Chief Executive Officer. Nor does the Sun-Times seem to think it owes the people of Philadelphia (and the other cities who’ve bought the bilge about the “CEO model” based on the Chicago miracle) an apology.

    Vallas’s financial wizardry has left Philadelphia’s public schools facing a deficit that may top $100 million for next school year, following a trail of Vallasesque lies about how it really wasn’t there. And then there are all of the mini-scandals that preceded Vallas abandoning ship: Cozette Buckney getting caught double-dipping (possibly worse); the predations of the “Vallas team” (a lot of familiar Chicago faces bellied up for more than a million dollars in consulting and other loot before getting run out of town); and some outright corruption (that may or may not result in Vallas or some of his cronies being indicted)…. 

    http://www.substancenews.net/articles.php?page=525

  • Linda174

    Type your comment here.Jun. 8–For the last four years, the Philadelphia School District has paid a senior aide to fly to work each week from her home in Chicago, live in a district-funded Center City apartment, rent a sports car, and, in one case, use the health club at a New York hotel. Yesterday, more than four months after The Inquirer first asked for district expense records, officials disclosed that the employee, Cozette M. Buckney — a special assistant to Superintendent Paul Vallas — had racked up more than $70,000 in expenses since she was hired under an extraordinary arrangement in July 2002. School district officials said yesterday that Vallas, who worked closely with Buckney in Chicago, agreed to pay her commuting and living expenses as an exception to district policies.

    But, Vallas said, he later found that some of Buckney’s expenses were “inappropriate.” He ordered her to repay $19,286 for rental cars, room service, and airline change fees, and the two agreed that she would leave the district at the end of June. “I assume if …