Seattle Schools Community Forum

There was a little confusion over how the Work Session/Public Hearing would go before tomorrow's Board meeting. According to the Board website: The Work Session will start at 4 p.m., recess at 4:30 p.m. for the Public Hearing on the Construction Management Exit Conference, reconvene when that is done and adjourn at 5:30 p.m. As I previously mentioned the Public Hearing consists of the reading of the legal wording of the hearing and then any public comments. Usually it's just me and Chris Jackins so that would make it pretty quick (unless many more people show up). But overall, this Work Session probably will have just about an hour to figure out what to do with the $3.3M.

I, along with other citizens, had written to the State Auditor several years back, complaining about the BEX capital building program. When you write to the Auditor, they log your letter and make sure you get a follow-up (I know that seems odd to have a public entity actually listen and keep track of your concerns but that's just how the SAO rolls.) The letter said some points made in the audit like: District facilities staff was unable to provide all requested documents in a complete and timely manner. We could not always determine whether the documents did not exist or whether they could not be located. Project documents were not store consistently, and some were in multiple locations. But they also said this: We were unable to address your specific concerns related to the District's decision to select specific school projects for inclusion in its BEX III program because we discovered larger issues related to the BEX II projects. I find that interesting because I wondered...

Charlie posted the district's news release on the audit. I always enjoy the minimizing that goes on in these things. One of the most clearly called out issues of the audit was lack of Board oversight of BEX spending to the point where the Board was not even being told about spending. What does the press release call it ( in the middle of a paragraph): ".. .communications with the Board ..." Like staff forgot to send the Board an e-mail. So what did the Board have to say? At first, when Steve asked for comments or questions, there was dead silence. That wasn't a good sign. He then handed the microphone over to Michael DeBell, noting that Michael was the only current Board member who was on the Board serving during the audit time period. Michael pointed out that there were 3 different Boards over the time period. Then Michael started something I thought I would see from other Board members but not him. He started the CYA period. He asked the auditors to expand ...

It wasn't quite the barnburner I thought it would be, this Construction Management audit . However, it was, for me, quietly defeating. It confirms my belief that the Superintendent would like to consolidate more power to staff and that many staff see the Board as something of a pesky fly to bat away. It did turn out to be a performance audit which meant they were not looking for anything illegal but rather asking was the district doing its job for construction management of BEX projects. There's an awful lot I could report but I think I'll just give the highlights for now and a separate thread on Board reaction and reflections. The audit is not yet available to the public but I will post it when it does. Highlights All the Board, except Kay Smith-Blum, were in attendance along with the head of Facilities, the Superintendent, the COO, two district legal counsels and the head of BEX Oversight Committee (the volunteer committee made up of construction and property manageme...