Today's Contract Committee meeting - disappointing with few questions & confusing answers from DOE

Above is the video from today's Contract Committee of the Panel for Educational Policy. It was a short meeting, mostly composed of Charlotte Hamamgian, the DOE Executive Director of Contracts and Purchasing, reading aloud the list of summaries of all the different contracts, which together cost about  $400 million this month. Only two PEP members asked questions, Kathy Park Price with a quick follow-up from Isaac Carmignani; unclear how many others listened in or if there was a quorum.

It was extremely disconcerting how the most elementary questions about the busing contracts were responded to with confusing, inadequate and sometimes downright contradictory responses from the DOE officials in charge. including Lindsey Oates, the DOE CFO and Sean Fitzpatrick, the executive director of the city Department of Education's pupil transportation unit.

• When Kathy asked about how much was paid to busing for the entire month of Sept. when schools were closed till Sept. 29, Lindsey Oates said 100% payments were made; adding that one or two days may have been at 85%.  Then Sean Fitzpatrick interjected to say that DOE paid Sept. 23 and 24 at the 85% rate, but after that at 100%. Isaac follow up to ask, so we didn't pay anything before then? and Sean said that was correct, appearing to contradict Lindsey Oates.  This left the actual amount of payments for Sept. as clear as mud. 
• Kathy then asked what was paid during March & April when schools were closed, Oates said we paid them  at "85% rate for the spring," making it unclear if she was referring to those months or the entire spring.  It was previously reported that only 40% was paid during May and June, although the DOE originally planned to pay 85% for these months, after I and others asked why and the NYC Comptroller objected.
  
•  Oates did explain that although more than 100 schools have been closed to in-person learning so far this fall, at least temporarily, this hasn't led to any busing savings, since the 43% clause is only triggered if the entire school system is shut down.  This means that even if more than half the schools are shut and no buses are used for those students, NYC still has to pay 100% of the full amount, or more than $1.1 billion a year -- for as long as every single school hasn't closed its doors.
  

Kathy also asked if parents are ever surveyed about their satisfaction with the performance of the bus companies.  The Charlotte Hamamgian said no, and claimed that the DOE had a "really rigorous performance evaluation process " for the bus companies, and that a lot of "due diligence" went into this. 

This claim was called into serious question last March by the NYC Comptroller here:

The Comptroller demanded answers about DOE’s persistent refusal to use rigorous and regular performance evaluations to ensure taxpayers are getting the services they pay for and that safety procedures are followed. Comptroller Stringer also raised alarms about DOE’s consistent failure to abide by even the most basic procurement protocols. In December, Comptroller Stringer returned $9.1 billion in school bus contract extensions after DOE failed to satisfactorily explain ballooning spending.

It would to nice to see a copy of the DOE's “rigorous” performance evaluations.

Kathy also asked why the DOE decided to extend the bus company contracts through 2025 at these terms. Sean Fitzpatrick said the the major benefits were to keep the busing contracts "solvent" and ensure the companies have personnel on hand. Yet these long-term extensions seem very unwise, especially  given huge uncertainties about future school closures and the current economic crisis which may cause even more radical budget cuts to schools; not to mention t that this administration will leave office in 2021.  Hamamgian said they would bring the DOE planned acquisition of Reliant bus company costing many more millions of dollars to the PEP at a future meeting.

There remain many more unanswered questions that I included in my memo to PEP members last week. Let's hope more questions are asked at the full PEP meeting on Wed. Oct 21 at 6 PM; more info including agenda here, with a link to the proposed contracts.  You can listen or sign up to speak starting at 5:30 PM here.

Millions in DOE contracts awarded for buses even if they're not running & scoring guides for tests that may never be given

 

As Sue Edelman reports in today's NY Post, last week the PEP approved the extension of contracts with busing companies through 2025 that will guarantee them 43% of the full amount -- amounting to more than $500 million per year ---whether buses are running or not.  

The  DOE also agreed to pay $106 million for May and June when buses were unused, which they say is 40% of the regular cost of busing for those two months.  This is less than the 85% that they originally planned to pay before we sounded the alarm last April about these contracts, at a savings of more than $100 million, but is still far more than they had to hand over.  

These contracts, like many others, contained a force majeure clause, which would allow all payments to be stopped in case of a pandemic, as a letter last spring from the NYC Comptroller pointed out. The NY Post article doesn't reveal what the DOE paid for the six weeks in March and April when the schools were also closed and buses weren't running, but one can assume DOE paid these companies the full contracted amount of more than $130 million per month during this period.

As I am quoted in today's article, the decision of the DOE to guarantee these payments, starting this year through 2025, seems extremely imprudent, especially given the huge dip in revenue the city is experience which may lead to even more budget cuts to our schools and their staffing: 

"Without more transparency about the rationale for these controversial contracts, it is impossible to know why the DOE is willing to sacrifice up to half a billion dollars per year in taxpayer money to busing companies through 2025, whether their buses are running or not,” Haimson said. “This seems highly irresponsible, especially given the fiscal crisis NYC is facing, which could lead to years of damaging budget cuts to our schools.“

Already today, the Mayor announced that in nine zip codes in Brooklyn and Queens, 100 public schools and 200 non-public schools (for which we also pay for busing) will be closed for at least the next two weeks.  More schools very well may close in the coming weeks, and yet the city will have to pay a minimum of more than a half a billion this year to the bus companies whether they are transporting students or not. 

Last spring, when we alerted reporters to the fact that the PEP was about to vote on renewing contracts with these companies which called for full payment even after the school buildings had been closed, the DOE pulled the contracts from the PEP meeting and restarted negotiations.  Then the bus companies started promulgating scare stories, warning if payments halted, neither the buses or their drivers would be ready to restart this fall.  One should note that doesn't appear to have happened.  The bus unions also warned of extreme economic damage to the drivers, but instead they went on unemployment, which at $600 per week through July may have surpassed their usual wages. 

Other wasteful contracts if less expensive were approved by the PEP last week.  One of them involves more than $800,000 in payments to Questar, the company which administers the state exams, for ELA and Math scoring guides for the years 2019-2020 as below.

What's wrong with this contract, aside from its excessive amount (couldn't these materials be provided online rather than printed and shipped ) and the way that it was authorized months after the period when it supposed to begin?  

No scoring or testing was done last year, because these exams were cancelled during the pandemic.  The DOE document says that "Questar had printed about 65,000 Scoring Guides for the  ELA  exams  scheduled  for  March  2020" whose cost DOE now apparently intends to pay for and use in 2021.  

If the exams aren't given in 2021, the document explains: 

Additionally, the requested term is for three years in case the upcoming state exam is suspended in spring 2021 until spring 2022; in this scenario, the three-year term allows the vendor to store and reuse the printed ELA scoring guides, saving additional costs, for the spring 2022 administration.

However, what the DOE doesn't mention here is that if exams are given in the spring of 2022 they may well be developed and administered by an entirely different company, as the state's contract with Questar lapses this year. 

In fact, the NY State Education Department has issued a new RFP, with bids due Nov. 24, for a new vendor to produce the state exams starting in 2021-22.  

There have been repeated problems with Questar's administration of these exams, including a student data breach in 2017, and computer crashes in many districts in 2018 and 2019.  In 2019, so many students were unable to upload their responses that the state cancelled the second day of computerized ELA testing.  As a result, Bob Lowry, president of the New York State Council of New York Superintendents, said they had serious doubts that Questar would ever properly do its job:

“We urge the State Education Department to immediately reevaluate its contractual relationship with Questar Assessment and undertake an aggressive review of the errors which have occurred during administration of this year’s assessments so that our students are never again subjected to such unacceptable experiences.”

So why did DOE signing contracts for nearly a million dollars with Questar through 2022 for scoring guides for exams that may never occur? It is inexplicable.

Where is DOE stashing $400 million in savings from cancelled busing this year?

Ever since April, when I saw that the DOE was asking the Panel for Educational Policy to approve  retroactive extensions of the busing contracts for March costing $180M,  to be automatically renewed in April for about the same amount, I've been concerned about why they were intent on spending these funds despite the fact that there has been no school busing since March 15, when schools were closed due to the pandemic.

The waste involved was even more astonishing, considering that the DOE will be facing big budget cuts next year, which will severely hamper the ability of NYC schools to provide the health and safety protections as well as educational and emotional support that students will need.

The DOE argued that, for some reason, they were obligated to renew the busing contracts through the end of the year, but would only pay 85%, as they apparently get 15% savings on snow days.

This didn't make any sense to me, given that these were contract extensions, with no legal obligations to renew.  Moreover, in most such contracts there is a provision called "force majeure" meaning the contract could be rendered null and void in case of a real emergency, including an epidemic.  

Sure enough, the City Controller wrote a letter to the DOE on April 17, pointing this out and asking, "Given the extreme budgetary pressures faced by the City amid the COVID-19 pandemic, it would seem contrary to all sense of fiscal prudence that the City would continue to pay for services that can no longer be rendered for the remainder of the school year. Every dollar must be leveraged to respond to our current public health crisis and to offset other proposed cuts to city schools."

The next thing I knew, DOE had taken the vote to extend the busing contracts for March and April off  the PEP agenda, and they haven't reappeared since.  Neither has there been any mention of extending the contracts for May or June.

And yet there are no DOE budget savings from busing listed in the final adopted budget documents on the OMB website for FY 2020, though $50 million is listed in savings for FY 2021, because of cancelled busing for summer school classes.

Assuming $180 million per month in savings, for the three and a half months the schools were shut from March 15 through the end of June, that could total as much as $540 million.

However, the DOE did not immediately stop paying the bus companies in mid-March -- even though the PEP never voted to renew their contracts for that month or the month of April. 

According to the Daily News, the DOE did not stop paying the bus companies until the first week in May, and then apparently stopped reimbursing them for the busing that never happened in April; that's also when the bus drivers stopped getting paid by the bus companies as well. 

I looked up what the savings have been on CheckbookNYC, a handy website run by the NYC Comptroller's office that tracks spending by city agencies.  

Sure enough, DOE spending for student transportation in May amounted to only $879,000 and $5.4 million in June, compared to $124.7 million in Jan., $  154.4 million in Feb.,  $121.7 million in March, and $141.1 million in April.  

Interestingly, payments from April 1-15 were nearly $136 million, but far less during the second half of the month,  at only about $6 million, which was after the Comptroller sent his letter on April 17 and Sue Edelman did a story on the controversy on April 18 in the NY Post.

In any case, with the average DOE monthly spending on busing per month for January, February and March of about  $134 million, the savings from  cancelling the contracts for April, May and June should total nearly $400 million.  Yet this amount is nowhere reflected in the OMB documents for DOE savings for this year, which instead list unspecified savings in all categories of only $200 million for FY 2020-- and which should include energy, leases, supplies, consultants, professional development, and more, which likely experienced considerable reductions since schools were closed in mid-March.

More mysteries: 

1- Why was the PEP asked to approve emergency busing extensions of $180 million for March when the most spent on busing in any month, according to CheckbookNY anyway,  is only about $154 million?  

2- Why did the DOE spend anything for busing in May and June?

3- When the June expenses of more than $5 million are examined closely, the vast majority of payments went to companies that transport Yeshiva students.  Yet Yeshivas, like public schools, are supposed to be closed.  The usual payments to these companies (which are not even included in the contracts that the PEP votes upon) cost the DOE about $5 million per month, according to CheckbookNYC, which is between three and four percent of the DOE's total spending on busing in a normal month.  

Yet for the months of May and June, the percentage spent on Yeshiva bus companies ballooned to 71-72% of the total amount DOE spent on busing, with nearly $4 million paid to these bus companies on June 29 alone.  Why did these payments continue and indeed increase in June?

There may be a perfectly logical reason for all this, and if readers have an explanation, please propose it in the comments box below. In any case, the lack of transparency around this issue is distressing, with the City Council apparently allowing DOE to stash away at least $400 million.  Instead of accounting for these savings which might have prevented the cuts to staffing and essential programs next year, these funds can now presumably be used on consultants, to sustain the DOE's inflated bureaucracy, or anything else. 

Last night's PEP meeting cancelled, bus contract approval further delayed, provoking many unanswered questions

As the Daily News reported this morning,  because of the inability or unwillingness of DOE to put the busing contract extensions for March and April up to a vote of the Panel for Educational Policy last night, all 16,000 bus drivers have now been furloughed.  The meeting, which had already been postponed from last week , ended shortly after it began because of problems with the DOE online platform. More on this below.  

Yesterday was a crazy day, even crazier than usual during these crazy times, due to technology gone astray. In the morning,  I was using a new app to broadcast my "Talk out of School" WBAI weekly radio show from home, connected via my iPhone to the sound engineer Michael Haskins, who is broadcasting the show from his home during the pandemic.

There were some unexpected gaps on the air before the show started and for a few minutes into the beginning of the show. Nevertheless, when the show did begin, my guests were great, including advocate Matt Gonzales, co-author of this letter about what a fully empathetic grading system should be like, and his explanation and critique of the DOE system that will be used.  Then I spoke to parent leader Naomi Pena about the myriad challenges families are facing during these difficult times with remote learning.

Luckily, my assistant Peter managed to edit the sound file to eliminate the gap at the beginning and to upload it to Simplecast; you can listen to the show here.

Then I drafted some brief comments to make at the Panel for Educational Policy meeting that was due to start that evening at 6 PM, to be conducted online via an platform called Adobe connect.  The PEP meeting had already been postponed from the week before, presumably because of the controversy over the cost of the busing contracts  -- a huge unnecessary expense especially at this time of fiscal crisis, as no buses have operated since schools were shut down in mid-March.

I was going to call on the Panel members to vote against renewing these contracts, which were to be retroactively approved for the month of March at $200 million, and another $200 million for April.  If these contracts were cancelled through the end of the year, that could save the DOE as much as $700 million.  I also urged them to consider voting against some of the other unnecessary contracts on the agenda as well:

Wasting funds that should go to educating children should never happen, but especially at a time like this, when the city is facing a fiscal cliff and the Mayor has proposed $827 million in cuts to education, with at least $240 million directly to school budgets next year. 

I strongly urge you to consider cancelling the bus contracts which amount to $700 million in unnecessary expenses since schools are closed and they are not being used.  As the NYC Comptroller pointed out, there is a clause in these contracts called Force Majeure, which means that either party can pull out without consequences if extraordinary events occur such as epidemics.

 If this was done, it would prevent the need for most all the cuts that have been proposed for next year. 

In addition, you should scrutinize carefully before you approve the contracts for professional development that’s not happening this year, the nurses we will need next year but not this one, and the consultant contracts which honestly seem like frills we cannot afford. 

If you do give a blank check to DOE, I hope you realize that you are making it more likely that next year, children will face even larger classes and the loss of counselors, social workers and other essential services that they will need more than ever before. 

Then at about 3:30 PM, I got a call from a Panel member who told me they had just received an email from DOE,  saying the vote on the busing contracts would be further postponed, and that the they were still in "conversations" with the bus companies.  This was subsequently confirmed by another Panel member.

I still intended to listen to the meeting and speak out against these and other unnecessary contracts, and logged into the Adobe Connect portal at 5:30 PM, where I had to fill out an online form with   my name, affiliation, email, and whether I request to speak, and if so, on what agenda item. 

I was pushed off the platform several times, kept logging in, switched browsers to Chrome, then tried to log-in via my iPad.  Once I gained entrance to the meeting, there was a note online that if someone wanted to provide a comment they should download the "audio setup wizard" which was nowhere to be seen. 

The sound was inconsistent and scratchy, and as more and more people joined the meeting, problems multiplied exponentially.  DOE officials and panel members were speaking over each other or couldn't be heard at all.    
Each time I got pushed out of the meeting, I had to log in again with all my information - name, email, affiliation etc. [Should disclosing all this private information be required to observe an Open Meeting for a governmental body?] Every time I had to log in, it would take longer each time.

Meanwhile,  comments were flying back and forth on Twitter for those of us hoping to listen and to speak on the various controversial issues to be considered, including the contracts, the huge proposed budget cuts to schools, the newly announced DOE grading system, and more.   Here are some:

Sound on PEp 😱

— leonie haimson (@leoniehaimson) April 29, 2020

Does it sound like the @NYCSchools pep meeting is being held underwater for anyone else? This is a bigger technical struggle than my previous 6 weeks of virtual schooling.

— Samantha Rubin (@StealthisSN) April 29, 2020

What a mess! pic.twitter.com/Pua8xRlmRB

— Kaliris Salas-Ramirez, PhD (@DrKYSR) April 29, 2020

Total disaster!

— Stacie (@StacieMaya) April 29, 2020

I've been remote teaching for 6 weeks and so far nothing this embarrassing has happened

— Samantha Rubin (@StealthisSN) April 29, 2020

Everyone suddenly went absent and reappeared, right after @DOEChancellor spoke. He made one of these 😬 and was like, "Did I do that?"

— Reema Amin (@reemadamin) April 29, 2020

You think this qualifies as a legal meeting? Now I think they’re excusing themselves that there are 450 people signing on #PEPfiasco

— leonie haimson (@leoniehaimson) April 29, 2020

I've been on since 5:30pm. Since the meeting "started" I haven't been able to make out one complete sentence. This cannot be considered a legal meeting.

— Alexa Avilés for City Council 2021 (@alexaforcouncil) April 29, 2020

Howard Friedman general counsel says to move the meeting to next week to work out the “issues”

— leonie haimson (@leoniehaimson) April 29, 2020

That @AdobeConnect platform is HORRENDOUS. You can’t hear anyone, it’s super low or volume cuts in and out. The static feedback is like scratching nails on a blackboard. The video quality is like a computer system running DOS. When @zoom_us was used last month, it was seamless.

— Naomi Peña (@naomi325) April 29, 2020

#PEP this is our children’s experience every day on their remote platforms... but y’all wanna use this grading policy on our children! #inprogress #Gradingforequity #PEPcanceled #PEPneedsImprovement #PEPcourseInProgress #PEPIncomplete @NYCSchools

— Rashida B Harris (@ItsShidaB) April 29, 2020

We were ALL planning to be there and speak out against unnecessary private contracts! Totally irresponsible for NYC govt to operate this way, esp given that dozens of virtual meetings go on at CEC’s, CB’s and other orgs every day!

— kimwatkinsnyc (@kimwatkinsnyc) April 29, 2020

Not great! https://t.co/eJfhelkKAS

— Jillian Jorgensen (@Jill_Jorgensen) April 29, 2020

I hear the @NYCSchools is planning to larger contract with @AdobeConnect as a platform for our meetings. Not after tonight!!! #PEPfail #PEPremotelearningcentral #PEPcanceled #ronadiaries

— Kaliris Salas-Ramirez, PhD (@DrKYSR) April 29, 2020

4/29 PEP’s meeting was a #HotMessOnAplatter #PEPcanceled #PEPneedsImprovement #PEPcourseInProgress #PEPIncomplete #PEPdoesntMeetStandards #PEPnetworkFail #PEPRemoteLearningCentral #PEPnoCredit #CUTtheContracts #FundOurSchools

— Rashida B Harris (@ItsShidaB) April 29, 2020

Tonight’s PEP Meeting debacle is symbolic of what we've been saying about access Remote Learning in our community all along. Don't assess and grade our children under these conditions! #PEPNeedsImprovement pic.twitter.com/3pq7hICfuU

— Tom Sheppard (@tomcsheppard) April 29, 2020

I subsequently heard via a reputable source that the DOE had moved off from Zoom to Adobe Connect for their PEP meetings, and had told people that the new platform was more reliable and "white glove," and thus also pricier.  How much they are paying for this deficient program is unknown.  Perhaps an enterprising reporter can find out!

I have many other, far more important questions which still need to be answered:

1- Are the busing contracts still under discussion, or has the DOE now decided not to extend them through the end of the year?

2- If the decision has been made to cancel these contracts, how many millions will be saved?  Is the total amount  $700 million, which is what the savings should be, given that the contracts cost $200 million per month and all busing ceased in mid-March?  Or since the contract to be voted upon last night was retroactive for March and April, does that mean the DOE already pay out $400 million -- even though the emergency extension had not yet been approved by the PEP?  (The NYC Comptroller has been very vocal in opposition to all these retroactive contracts; with 93.6% of DOE contracts submitted retroactively last year - the worst of any agency. Clearly this is not what the State Legislature envisioned when they gave the PEP to authority to approve or disapprove DOE contracts.)

3- Since none of the savings from cancelling the busing contracts were reflected in the Mayor's Executive Budget released two weeks ago, if the decision to cancel them is final, does this mean that the DOE's proposed budget cuts of about $240 million directly to schools can now be reversed?

4-If there is money left over, will the Mayor and Chancellor consider spending additional funds on reducing class size from these savings, as the UFT President Michael Mulgrew and others have pointed out will be necessary to maintain social distancing in classrooms next year, as well as provide the academic support necessary to make up for all the learning lost during the shutdown of schools?

I hope we get some of the answers to these questions soon.  Families and city taxpayers deserve to know.