I have been there. I have watched this scenario play out again and again. And in the end, it corrupts the district from the top to the bottom. What this means is that whatever School Board that you choose, it has to be squeaky clean from day one, or the disease will dribble down to the whole system.
Here’s how the real “hustle” plays out:
Folks who have other bigger political ambitions begin their ambition by running for the School Board. The School Board is authorized by law to set-up it’s own internal structure, by adopting bylaws for this purpose. Again and again, those members with bigger ambitions, which are usually a majority of those elected, choose to set up a structure which enables them to milk their position so as to build a war chest for their next stepping stone.
Firstly, they agree to and enact bylaws which empower the Board President to determine what committees are needed and to appoint all committee chairs.
Behind closed doors, they then negotiate with those members who want to become President of the Board, and in exchange for their support to become President, to appoint them as chair of a committee which has control over the approval of many of the bigger contracts.
Then, those vendors who know how this game is played, wine and dine these Board Members who have significant contract approval powers. No one ever asks outright for a quid pro quo, which means something specific for something specific in return. That’s a crime. But this usual dance falls short of being a provable crime beyond a reasonable doubt, and most of the players know how to do this dance. This dance has gone on for decades, and most of those in the vending and political arenas know how to do the real “hustle”.
But school staff all down the line know when this stuff is going-on, and begin to wonder when their turn will come…. It communicates all down the line that no one really cares about educating children. It’s all about yourself and doing for yourself.
Then, there is also a raft of folks who hang around Detroit politics and try to find an inroad for themselves. Even with folks who run and come on the Board with good intentions, these folks stroke their egos, and often convince them that they have great political futures just ahead, all the time hoping that they can land a spot on that gravy train. And time and time again, potentially good people get sucked into this muck.
And, there are plenty of vendors who rely not upon their performance to get more work, but upon whom they can gain as their champions, again by stroking egos and doing small favors, which in many cases just leads to doing bigger and bigger favors. When a vendor has some champions on the Board, they don’t have to worry about whether or not the schools get what they need when they need it. And so the schools often get shortchanged and ripped-off.
Now, to really “step on” and trash a monster sacred cow: minority contractor preference practices. Over the years of my employment at the City and the County, I was always an advocate for providing bidding preferences for both women-owned and minority contractors. And in both of those circumstances, the results, while unfortunately not very significant, were not especially harmful to the best public interest, mainly I think, because there is a distinctive divide between the executive and legislative functions in our City and County governments. But, there is no such divide in the case of School Boards. The Superintendent is never totally independent of the Board. He or she is hired by the Board and can be fired by the Board. And when Board members intervene in the Superintendent’s decisions on contracting, the outcomes are rarely in the best interests of Detroit’s citizens and children.
There is a whole raft of these “vendors” who add absolutely nothing to a contract, other than to delay and complicate its performance, which means that the schools which need the product or service have to wait for it weeks longer than expected. What these folks usually do, is to line-up a vendor, who is not eligible for the set-aside program, to actually provide the needed service or product, and reap the mark-up from that vendor’s price. This does not in fact assist them in becoming a more viable vendor in the marketplace, because they have performed no service which has any value in that marketplace. All they do is milk the set-aside program for a few dollars, and slow-up (and sometimes totally foul-up) the process of getting the schools what they need when they need it. Worse yet in some cases, because the set-aside program often enables them to be paid before delivery, they pocket the money and fail to pay the actual vendor, and nothing is ever delivered. And then, the District’s only option is to sue them in civil court, where they are highly unlikely to be collectible. The District then runs-up legal costs and the schools end-up with zilch.
BUT, in Detroit, Set-Aside Programs have become sacrosanct among well established institutions like the NAACP, and Detroit’s children just have to suffer with them.
Worse yet even, this whole sacrosanct mindset sets-up Board Committee Chairs with a potent added weapon with which to befuddle those bidders who still come in below that of the set-asiders. All of a sudden, the Committee Chair wants to investigate their past hiring practices, and begins to expect that they should sub-contract a part of their performance to some set-aside firm. Magically, all of this concern waxes away as soon as they have made a hefty donation to the Chair’s war chest.
Bottom Line: In the case of the Detroit Community Public Schools, I think that we just have to set “set-asides” aside as a major priority, and instead to concentrate upon getting our schools exactly what they need, and as fast as they need it. The administration of “set-asides” can become extremely expensive, sometimes doubling the cost of the awarded contract. We have to delegate this expectation to the Superintendent and to stand behind the Superintendent when other institutions in the community are off marching to a different drum. We should indeed do “set-asides” when it costs nothing to do so, but we should never expend education dollars for a program which benefits some other sector of our City at the expense of our children, no matter how much it may be needed for those non-educational purposes!
In 2005, as a member of the Ethics Committee on Governor Granholm’s Transition Task Force, I drafted a proposed Procurement and Ethics Policy for the Detroit Public Schools, which was presented to that newly elected Board. This was an up-date of a proposal which I had presented to the Board back in the late 90’s. At that time, 9 of the 11 board members were on-board to adopt this policy. We had more than 20 community meetings to present it and gather feed-back, which was all positive. But Governor Engler still shoved us aside and took over the district, before it could be adopted.
It is true that this policy is 72 pages long, which is far longer than most voters can tolerate reading. But public procurement is an extremely complicated undertaking. This policy was based upon a national Model Procurement Code, which has been implemented in more than 20 of the United States. It mirrors federal practice. It is taught in every competent business school. There are thousands of public purchasing agents around the country who are familiar with it and who have expertise with its implementation. In fact, it was developed by the American Bar Association back in 1979/80, and Detroit was one of the four local jurisdictions used to formulate it. And I was then the designated person in Detroit City government, who worked with the ABA for some 18 months in formulating this Model Code. That’s why I am so conversant with it, and so clearly understand the impact and purpose of each word and phrase in the Model Code. The policy itself is only about 40 pages long, but the proposed policy includes about 32 pages of explanatory notes, so that ordinary people can understand why each of its requirements are needed. I will write a blog in the near future to summarize and explain this means of bringing speed, transparency, and integrity to the purchasing system.
Back in 2011, Emergency Manager Roy Roberts adopted a purchasing policy, which also runs 40 pages, and which is still the district policy. It includes many of the features of the Model Procurement Code, but not all of them, and not of some of the key parts.