No-Bid contracts may be “The Vallas Style,” but they are illegal in Connecticut.

Aug 17

jonpeltoBridgeport, Malloy, Mayor Bill Finch, Paul Vallas, Stefan Pryor , , , 10 Comments

During the first eight months that Paul Vallas worked as the Superintendent of the Recovery School District in New Orleans, he spent about $3 million on personal service contracts.

According to an investigation by the Times Picayune newspaper, most of those consultants had worked with Vallas when he was the CEO of the Philadelphia and Chicago schools systems.

The paper also discovered that “the vast majority of the RSD’s contracts were not competitively bid.”

At the time, however, Louisiana’s laws requiring that professional-service contracts be competitively bid were more lenient.  Interestingly, after all the publicity, Louisiana changed its process to require far greater use of bidding procedures.

It’s not completely clear how much Vallas has spent here in Connecticut on no-bid contracts with consultants that he’s worked with in the past, but the number appears to be in the range of $1 million.

But what is clear is that Connecticut has very strict laws on competitive bidding and Paul Vallas has failed to follow those laws.

Connecticut law and Bridgeport’s Municipal Code require a process that is not hard to understand;

  • “Competitive bidding shall be used for all purchases of goods and general services exceeding the sum of seven thousand five hundred dollars ($7,500.00.) (See C.G.S. § 7-148v, as amended)”
  • However, the threshold is different for purchases of “special or professional services.”
  • Contracts for “special or professional services” that are less than nine hundred ninety-nine dollars ($999.00) do not need to be put out to bid.
  • Purchases of “special and professional services” costing between one thousand dollars ($1,000.00) and seven thousand four hundred ninety-nine dollars ($7,499.00), must go through an “a competitive quotation process.”
  • Purchases of “special or professional services” that are in excess of seven thousand five hundred dollars ($7,500.00) but do not exceed twenty-four thousand nine hundred ninety-nine dollars ($24,999.00) must go through a “competitive proposal process.”
  • And purchases of “special or professional services” over $25,000 require full competitive bidding.

Of the 14 professional services agreements that Team Vallas has revealed to date, 11 were in excess of $25,000 and another three were between $7,500 and $24,999.

Not one went through the required bidding process.

This issue has been raised repeatedly with no response or action from the people responsible for ensuring that the appropriate laws and regulations be followed.

Mayor Finch, Governor Malloy and Malloy’s Commissioner of Education, Stefan Pryor, all have the responsibility to ensure that public funds be properly used and bidding laws be followed.

In addition, considering that the vast majority of funds being used come from the state, the State Auditors, Attorney General, and potentially the State’s Attorney, may also have a legal obligation to get involved.

The question that is now hanging in the air is what happens when public officials don’t fulfill their legal obligations to stop the blatant disregard for bidding laws and requirements.

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  • Not Born Yesterday

    It’s time to enact meaningful legislation allowing for the RECALL of any or all public officials for whom “the buck” is supposed to stop but who are steadfastedly not operating in the public’s best interests. The kind of continuing outrageous political shenanigans and autocratic and illegal superintendent behaviors we’re seeing transpire here in Bridgeport, at a minimum, surely merit the recall of our governor, education commissioner, mayor, and all currently appointed BOE members. Just hope that whoever gets elected to the next BOE understands that we’re all going to be WATCHING and demanding a hell of a lot better performance out of each and all of them, beginning with putting an end to Vallas tyranny.

  • Sue

    What a great expose it would be for the CT Post to examine how these costs will affect Bridgeport residents in general. Taxes, services, general costs of living, etc. will all have to cover the expenses of the Vallas team’s self-generosity.

  • Linda174

    Jon,

    But how does a citizen, or group of citizens, push for an inquiry? Remember the SERC slush fund and Tom Swan filed a complaint of some sort. I forget the name of the orgnanization right now….CCAG: CT Citizens actions group. http://ccag.net/. I think.

    One would think we could file a complaint or action via the AG’s office. Give me some idea how to pursue this with some action on our part.

  • Sleepless in Bridgeport

    Obviously Vallas has a “Get out of Jail Free” Card issued by Malloy, Pryor, and Finch. Damn thing is that one of many reasons the Bridgeport Public Schools managed themselves into their current pickel is that they endeavored to adhrere to the rules and regulations of NCLB and our state legislature. For trying to follow the law, most of who was used to be the administrators of Bridgeport Schools got canned or demoted. Vallas’ posse knows nothing about what they are now overseeing, care only about their PR, aren’t here for the long haul, don’t live anywhere near here, and I promise you will manage their way to a melt down of our public schools.

    The writing is on the wall. Any new board come Sept will never be able to undo the plague that the unholy trio (plus Vallas) has brought upon our city. In the words of humpty dumpty “All the kings horses and all the kings men could not put humpty (or BPS) together again.”

    This is a state where a governor has gone to jail, several mayors have followed including Bridgeport’s own. This is a city with an incumbent mayor…….(you fill in the blanks). These are the guys that the laws were put in for in the first place……..so why should the good citizens of Connecticut and Bridgeport be concerned. Please line up at the door to have your pockets picked.

  • Buygoldandprosper

    The state is lacking an AttorneyGeneral who is independent,competent,has a spine.
    Maybe Mr. Jepsen learned a bit about corruption while he was exiled to Florida,or perhaps his Stamford inner sleaze is surfacing with his first real job in a while.

  • guest

    Just in case anyone out there is uncertain as to why “education reform” is such big business with massive promotion in the media, read this: http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/post/the-big-business-of-charter-schools/2012/08/16/bdadfeca-e7ff-11e1-8487-64e4b2a79ba8_blog.html#pagebreak

  • guest

    Check this out–maybe Obama can be convinced to dump Arne Duncan before the election! The teachers’ unions should seize on this to force the Obama administration to get rid of the onerous and counterproductive initiatives of Race to the Top and NCLB: http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/post/on-obamas-call-to-states-to-save-teachers-jobs/2012/08/18/6c680da0-e929-11e1-8487-64e4b2a79ba8_blog.html#pagebreak

  • guest

    Here is some absolutely dire news from New York, Pryor’s training ground. Bloomberg, remember, commiserated and probably advised Malloy on Ed Reform this spring. http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/18/nyregion/nearly-half-of-new-york-city-teachers-are-denied-tenure-in-2012.html?_r=1&emc=eta1

  • http://www.facebook.com/people/Rich-White/100000066062155 Rich White

    The ultimate irony: Malloy quotes his job growth figures and speaks to the decline in government jobs and the increases in private sector jobs. A closer look and its shuffling of deck chairs from government to non-profits and for-profits in various outsourcing initiatives including education reform.
    Not that I’m complaining. The deinsitutionalization of state hospitals into group homes (using vouchers I hope) is a grand thing. I’m all in favor of uisng vouchers to outsource and privatize state services.
    Then there’s the issue of facility management and cities selling facilities and turning to a rental/lease model for public and charters and vouchers. It gets the cities out from under the onerous burden of the schools existing for the sole sake of the facility management unions where volunteer help is prohibited, prison workers prohibited, , student landscapers prohibited, etc. all to protect the $100,000 union lawn maintenance jobs.
    I’m all for the outsourcng and competitive bidding and selling of schools and facility management. Union workers need to compete for vouchers.

  • crazycrawfish

    We probably had dozens of those no-bid
    contracts in New Orleans, many for millions of dollars each, with companies
    Vallas was personally vouching for or bringing in. He used a lot of federal
    dollars the flooded in from FEMA after Katrina. He spent millions on transport
    with an out of state contractor (back loaded if i recall to), millions on an
    IEP system produced by his buddy Jim Flanagan from Boston Consulting Group he
    insisted RSD needed, even though LDOE had already produced one that was fully
    integrated with the state SER (Special Education Reporting) system and which was
    free. He had to hire like a dozen more people to double enter information in
    his BCG IEP system and in the state system since the BCG was never state
    compliant for data submissions. He hired an out of state security contractor
    for some many millions of dollars. They tried to bring in PowerSchool which he
    and Flanagan had ties to (i think they were getting fees from them.) I was on
    the RFP selection committee for the two final vendors, a state based vendor
    with about 60% of the state already as clients, and PowerSchool with no
    presence. PowerSchool could only do 1/3 of the RFP, did not guarantee us data
    submissions the first year, and bid more than twice as much and Flanagan rated
    them all 10s on a scale of 1-10 in all categories and had a hissy fit when PowerSchool
    wasn’t selected. I had to testify before our state school board about the reliability
    of the local vendor before they could get the contract approved. Vallas used a
    state vehicle to drive home to Chicago from New Orleans (which was illegal and
    came out when he totaled it), when he wasn’t riding a train back and forth. We
    got to see him a few days a week though. He brought in a cadre of people who
    proceeded to climb to position of power in our state government. Most of them
    have fled to wealthier pastures now that the federal dollars have run out and
    left us with the check for all their feed. I think they also stiffed the state
    for the insurance costs on all their buildings which other school districts
    couldn’t do, but allowed to spend more money on contracts, consultants and who
    knows what else. Before he left he picked his successor, John White, who is
    a ridiculous toady, fawning at the feet of our corrupt governor. Other than that,
    things are great.