$54 Per Person
Background:
David Westberg of Local 609 wrote this to Harium on this subject:
In an earlier time of accountability and eyes on the bottom line, the Chief Finance Officer wrote the following to the Senior Leadership Team on March 9, 2004;
“As we continue to look for ways to save on costs, expenses on food, muffins, coffee, lunches, and snacks should be curtailed. In tight budget times, we need to save our limited resources to protect services to students, not expend them on meals and food for staff. Therefore, buying food for staff with district funds (grant or non-grant) should be stopped”
This was sent out to augment the “Guidelines for Catering Services” which had been negotiated with District Food Services (Catering Department) employees giving “Nutrition Services priority for providing all catering services both in the JSCEE building and in school sites for non-district and District sponsored business activities, during all operation hours including weekends…………..Catering requests for all District sponsored business activities must have the approval from the accounting manager to use grant or district funds, including self help funds before Nutrition Service will accept orders.”
The policy goes on to say;
“All bills received from outside food vendors will be double checked for proof of approval from Nutrition Services. If bills cannot be reconciled to pre-approved documentation, the bills will not be paid. Un-approved food orders will become the responsibility of the individual ordering the food.”
KING 5 is correct that these functions are held yearly but are normally paid for by the Seattle Schools Veterans Association. Last years was held at the Lake City Elks and was paid for by the Association.
According to KING-5, the party hosted 70 people. So doing the math, $3800 divided by 70 people and that's $54 a person. Most catering, unless it is for a very fancy wedding or event, does not cost $54 a person. It's certainly would not seem the norm for a school district retirement party. And, we have a policy in place about using outside vendors which does not seem to have been followed.
In the overall scheme of things is the $3800 a big deal? No. But what is a big deal is that there are people in our district who tell us all schools must tighten their belts and we seem to have money for whatever they deem important. As Meg Diaz' points out, there are many schools for whom $3800 would be a lot of money to put towards a good use.
There are people in this district who are not following policies and regulations almost to the point of disregard. If we cannot trust that the management and oversight are happening in this district, then I am prepared to say that this is likely the tip of an iceberg.
Thank you to Dave and Meg for their work on this story and the alert from Parent of Three.
Oh and this was the last line of the KING-5 TV story: The district declined comment today.
Comments
And you're right, tip of the iceberg.
And we are stuck with this for three more years.
Funny, if they had been inline with what the regular peeps pay to cater an event, around $15-$20/pp for a lunch, the bill would have been $1050 - $1400 and the auditor would not have taken issue.
Makes me a bit ill....
So what makes us think that something like that didn't happen? Why do we assume that $3,800 was the full and total cost of the event? How do we know that there weren't other expenses paid for this event on a separate charge?
And the cost! $54 per person! Did everyone get the surf and turf?
The CEO of a business, the president of a country and the superintendent of a district has the same rights and responsibility to lead.
Taking advantage of a position is not responsible behavior.
Friday night was Goodloe-Johnson's going-away-party at the Charleston Yacht Club, but going away wasn't the focus of the article. No, it focused on "three recipients of multimillion- dollar contracts with the Charleston County School District [who] collectively contributed $7,000 for" the party. Goodloe-Johnson was not amused. She must have been shocked to get probing questions from Courrege: in fact, she called such questions "'tacky'." That's as in "lacking good taste"?
Most people would call these contributions kickbacks; they have nothing to do with good taste but are, in some corrupt circles, considered a cost of doing business. The biggest contributor to the party's costs provides custodial services to three-fourths of the constituent districts. It has a multi-million dollar contract that could be extended, especially if it's nice to the administration. Two other companies are "construction management firms for the district's building program." Their "program management" fees total about $17 million over the next few years. What's a minor payment when so much is at stake?
And Don Kennedy's defense: "most of the district's major contractors make donations to the district. School officials who work with the companies asked them to give money for the event."
Well, that's clear, then. Those donations CERTAINLY couldn't be considered kickbacks!
And to cement the soundness of the practice, Kennedy pointed out that the district did the same for Ron McWhirt.
Oh, well then. If they did it in the past, it MUST be okay.
"Kennedy said the district doesn't solicit money from companies that could soon be submitting contract proposals to the district, and he didn't see the donations as a conflict."
Well, he wouldn't, would he? After all, he doesn't see it as a conflict of interest that he sits on the audit committee that selects the auditing firm that audits himself.
They must still be searching for the tattler who told Ravenel where the funds came from. Unfortunately, Ravenel, who chose not to attend as a result, was the only board member who did see the conflict, or as he said, "'It doesn't pass the smell test.' It's difficult for companies that do business with political entities to turn down requests for money for events."
Well, duh. I wonder what the other board members thought.
If you do want to do that and need help passing it along those channels, let me know...
We're still trying to have a total audit like Seattle's to begin to recover the rest of the waste. How much more could be saved actually, we don't know.
I sent off a public records request on the event so we have some more information.
One key thing that I didn't know before is that this was NOT the regular retirees party. That one is organized by the Seattle Schools Veterans Assn. and they usually get money donated plus money from their membership and members had to pay to attend.
So who this was for, where it was, who organized and did it get run through any of the district protocols for catered events is yet to be known. I did ask a lot of questions including Charlie's question about other costs.
I'm sensing a big whoops here and that someone is likely to be paying back money to the district here. l
is this not day-to-day operations in the Goodloe-Johnson era?
Really no one is supposed to be commenting on this as ONLY the Strategic Plan is used to evaluated the superintendent.
I've got this document from Nov 28, 2007 that says so.
Now .. Puhleeze ....back away from harassing our Queen.
The only way these things occur is when the prevailing mindset of those committing the offenses is "We're Untouchables."
MGJ speaking about "accountability" is like Lucifer reading the Ten Commandments. Volcanoes should erupt and clocks should spin backwards, it's so hypocritically wrong and offensive.
Why don't we dispense with the flag salute at the Board meetings and just salute a Stalin-like banner of MGJ giving us the middle finger? Which better represents reality?
I dont believe in nationalities, borders, flags, pledges, anthems, patriotism...
"I have no country to fight for; my country is the earth, and I am a citizen of the world.”
Eugene Debs
Boo.......
:)
That said, I'm not sure they audit for "promises". I think that the Board would have to ask for that and ask, in real, directed dollars, where the savings is and where those saved dollars go.
On his blog, Director Martin-Morris claimed that the Board made a tough choice when they decided to blow that budget. He did not, however, say what the choice was. He didn't say what initiative didn't get funded to come up with the additional $100,000 to $300,000 for STEM.
Likewise, no one said where the money was coming from to put $88,000 of District general fund cash towards the Native American program after the District blew the grant.
For all of the talk about austerity and having a hard time balancing the budget, there never seems to be any trouble coming up with cash when the District wants to. And there certainly isn't any mention about what lost funding to make these things happen.
If you don't know what lost the funding, then you didn't really make a choice - let alone a tough one.
2) what that person did say was that the party honored 70 people and maybe it was more people so maybe the $54 figure is wrong. I looked at Meg Coyle's story and her wording is a little ambiguous - "The party hosted 70 people."
So does that mean honored 70 people or had 70 people - I have a call into her.
I think Charlie's question is valid, though. Is the $3800 the final cost? Was there a facility rental fee? Staffing fee? I'll find out when I get the public disclosure info back (which should be in, oh, about 2 months.