NEWS
- Audit: D.C. government sloppy with school spending
- A need for accountability
- Audit faults management of school modernization
- Ellington modernization costs raise concern
- D.C. Entrepreneur Pushes STEM for Minorities
Audit: D.C. government sloppy with school spending
Watchdog.org
By Moriah Costa
July 2, 2015
The government body in charge of school modernization efforts in Washington, D.C., has done a poor job of managing funds, according to a report released Wednesday by the Office of the District of Columbia Auditor.
The scathing audit found that from fiscal years 2010-2013, the Department of General Services did not provide adequate financial oversight, spending $1.2 billion on school renovations and doing a poor job of accountability, transparency and “basic financial management.”
“Across the city, public school students are benefiting from modern new facilities, and there is much to commend in the priority given to school construction,” D.C Auditor Kathy Patterson said in a statement. “But District resources are finite. We owe it to taxpayers to see that modernization funds are spent well and prudently, to assure our ability to complete the task of upgrading all of our schools.”
Parents and teachers have come forward at D.C. City Council meetings to testify about the lack of building renovations after projects were pushed back in Mayor Muriel Bowser’s $1.3 billion school building plan. The council passed the School Modernization Financing Act in 2006 to fix aging school buildings.
The biggest concern is the cost — spending for schools has escalated, especially for Duke Ellington School of the Arts, which has grown from an approved budget of $71 million in 2012 to $178 million in the 2016 proposed budget.
The report recommends the city reassess its decision to contract out project management to a private partnership created by two architecture firms and determine if oversight by government officials would create more accountability. The firm, called D.C. Partners for the Revitalization of Education Projects, LLC, received $37 million from 2010 to 2013.
The auditor was not able to verify payments made by the management firm, including 32 payments on payroll records that totaled $38 million, “indicating an inability to prove compliance with prevailing wage law.”
In addition, the audit found that government agencies in charge of the school modernization projects may have made improper payments. The audit could not verify the approval of 166 of 458 budget transfer requests, totaling $169 million.
In addition, there was lack of documentation of $38 million in budget items. In one case, vendor invoices did not match payments that were made.
The school modernization law called for a master facilities plan to assess the conditions of school buildings, but auditors found plans did not reflect the schools chosen for modernization and did not include school-by-school funding allocations.
In addition, the law called for a Modernization Advisory Committee, but the 11 members stopped meeting in 2008. It also called for an annual audit, but since the law was passed only two audits have been completed.
A council hearing on school modernizations is scheduled for Wednesday. The Department of General Services plans to respond to the audit at the hearing.
A need for accountability
The Current Newspapers
By Davis Kennedy and Chris Kain
July 1, 2015
The Office of the D.C. Auditor has issued a scathing condemnation of D.C. Public Schools’ modernization program, saying it “lacks accountability, transparency and basic financial management.” And that’s just the title.
The auditor assessed school renovation projects from 2010 to 2013, finding problems throughout the effort, from a lacking rationale behind which schools are chosen for updates to the negligent way the city manages its projects.
The program was so troubled, in fact, that often the auditor’s office struggled to even do its job: “It has proven difficult, if not impossible, to determine how, when, why and by whom schools are selected for modernization,” states the audit. Later it says that in some cases, the agency’s internal “control environment was so deficient that [the auditor] could not perform … a basic program evaluation.”
Perhaps most troubling is that the city government may have spent far more than necessary on the work completed so far. A summary of the report’s findings notes that the agencies involved “failed to provide basic financial management, creating the risk that the District has not obtained maximum value for taxpayer dollars and the potential for the misuse of taxpayer funds.”
The office is also conducting audits of recent and ongoing specific projects, such as Duke Ellington School of the Arts, where the estimated cost of a major modernization has ballooned from $71 million three years ago to nearly $178.5 million today. A report on Ellington’s project is expected this fall.
The Department of General Services recently attributed the higher price tag at Ellington to its educational program needs, an increase in square footage, construction market conditions and historic preservation requirements. But the agency also claimed, in a response via Twitter to The Current’s article last week on the Ellington project, that it has never “missed a deadline or gone over-budget.”
That statement seems to lean on an terribly loose definition of “budget”; it’s certainly far easier to stick to one if it can change constantly. But whatever way you phrase it — cost overrun or response to budget pressures — these constantly shifting numbers are clearly atrocious planning.
Obviously, we’d prefer estimates that come closer to the mark from the start. Schools activist Matt Frumin says the initial number for Ellington was way off: “Everybody I’ve heard from said the original cost projections didn’t make sense,” he said. “There was always an expectation that costs would go up.” We can understand tweaks to a budget along the way, but an increase of more than 150 percent?
There are serious impacts, too: When the cost of one modernization goes up, others lose money or have to be delayed. Perhaps $178 million is warranted to rebuild Ellington, whose arts program is considered a jewel of the system, but the community should have been able to weigh in on that question at the start.
The D.C. Council will hold a hearing July 8 on school modernization projects and the auditor’s findings. We hope and expect that our legislators will demand changes to this absurd system of fiscal mismanagement.
Audit faults management of school modernization
The Current Newspaper
Current Staff Report
July 1, 2015
The D.C. auditor is releasing a report today blasting the city’s school modernizations from 2010 through 2013, concluding that the program “violated statutory requirements on transparency and funding, failed to assess and secure contingency savings,” and overspent on five high school renovation projects.
In total, the District spent $1.2 billion on school renovations during the four-year period assessed, according to a news release from the Office of the D.C. Auditor. That period fell during the mayoral administrations of Adrian Fenty and Vincent Gray.
The release summarizes the audit’s major findings, including that the city spent $37 million to contract out project management to a private partnership called “D.C. Partners for the Revitalization of Education Projects.” The auditor’s office is recommending that the city “periodically reassess that privatization” and consider whether the government itself could provide better management.
The report also finds that the program failed to comply with transparency requirements set by the two major legal documents guiding the modernization process. “Information and analysis … have not been consistently provided, including the rationale for selection of projects for funding,” the release says, noting that the auditor’s office wasn’t able to find or verify a large number of documents related to the modernizations.
In addition, an advisory committee intended to provide oversight of school renovations “was essentially disbanded in 2008 and has not been reappointed,” the auditor’s office found.
The audit includes a preliminary response from the D.C. Department of General Services, the city agency now in charge of oversight and management of D.C. school modernizations.
The letter, which acknowledges “the need for immediate corrective action” on the program, notes that the agency will respond in more depth at a July 8 D.C. Council hearing.
The publication of the audit was timed to give information to the council and public in advance of that public hearing, according to the release.
The news release notes that the audit itself is an effort to comply with the same 2006 School Modernization Financing Act that launched the District’s massive renovation efforts in recent years.
“I regret we have not fully done our part to promote sound oversight of school modernization spending,” D.C. auditor Kathy Patterson, who joined the office about six months ago, says in the release.
She noted that her office recently “has ramped up our review of school modernization,” including a review of the cost escalations for the renovation of the Duke Ellington School of the Arts.
Ellington modernization costs raise concern
The Current Newspapers
By Terry Lynch
July 1, 2015
In trumpeting a Current correction to a story about the spiraling out-of control expense of the Duke Ellington School of the Arts modernization project,the D.C. Department of General Services claimed on Twitter: “We’ve never missed a deadline or gone overbudget.”
Who are they kidding — themselves or D.C. taxpayers? The published capital plan accompanying the fiscal year 2014 budget put the cost of the Ellington project at $81.5 million, with construction to be completed by the end of August 2015. The capital plan accompanying the fiscal year 2016 budget now puts the cost at a whopping $170 million, with construction to be complete at the end of August 2016, and recent reports suggest the students will not return to the school until August 2017.
Talk about busting the budget!
Perhaps the theory is that because the budget has been increased and the completion date put off, the Department of General Services has not gone over budget or missed a deadline.
Fortunately, newly installed D.C. auditor Kathy Patterson is now focused on the management (or lack thereof) of school modernizations generally and the Ellington project specifically.
When completed, Ellington will be stunning — but also a stark monument to poor planning.
The General Services Department is plunging into a mind-bogglingly expensive modernization — with apparently no cap on costs — of a school in a suboptimal location, as other very worthy schools get pushed further back and even out of the queue for modernization. Benjamin Banneker — an academic flagship magnet high school serving a similar number of students as Ellington — has had its modernization postponed in essence indefinitely owing in no small part to the expense of Ellington’s modernization; other very needy, worthy schools have seen their modernizations delayed as well. If the Ellington building had been converted back to be a traditional neighborhood high school, the city could have created another high-performing school that would have directly eased the overcrowding at Wilson High School — a still -unresolved problem. Ellington could have been moved to a dynamic, more conveniently located site.
It is not too late to stop this runaway train. As one possibility, the city could co-locate Ellington in the soon-to-be-completely-modernized (and also beautiful) Roosevelt High School, located just blocks from the Petworth Metro. Indeed, if officials did that, the city could plan for the modernization of the adjacent Mac-Farland Middle School in ways that create a truly exciting campus, supercharging efforts to strengthen the feeder system in Ward 4, where currently many families seek charter and private school alternatives to D.C. Public Schools.
Thanks to Kathy Patterson’s work, we may get to the bottom of what has happened with this project, but only as it moves deeper past the point of no return and at costs that are a disservice to the many other families of D.C. that also deserve modernized school facilities. That should not happen — the city can provide a firstclass facility to Ellington students in a way that does not disadvantage so many others
D.C. Entrepreneur Pushes STEM for Minorities
The Washington Informer
By Stacy M. Brown
July 1, 2015
Charles Wilson isn’t shy about discussing poverty and the issues that face many inner-city and poverty-stricken youth on a regular basis.
However, the District area entrepreneur doesn’t just point out the problems; he offers solutions that are in part based on his own life experience.
That experience includes a stint in the United States Navy at age 17; becoming a husband and father at 18; and overcoming definitive odds to assert himself as a true leader, motivator and example of what science, technology, engineering and mathematics can do to quickly change the fortunes of the hopeless.
“The first thing for me is exposure and making our young people aware of what career opportunities exists. We see the same story lines about STEM and Nuclear Energy, that there isn’t information and that no one is aware of the opportunities,” said Wilson, the managing partner at CW Consulting Group, co-founder for The Legacy Initiative, and a member of the American Association of Blacks in Energy in Northwest.
Wilson is also a senior reactor operator trainer, one of the most highly regarded and respected accomplishments in the commercial nuclear industry.
“No one goes out into these cities and communities talking about having a career in nuclear energy, but when you see a black man who has been successful and once the kids are exposed to potential careers and then you provide a map with specific goals, it becomes real,” he said.
Wilson has even made it a habit to show youth his paycheck stubs because that’s when they appear to understand that the effort is worth pursuing, he said.
It’s also a method that he uses to display his unique connection to them.
Wilson grew up in the rough and hardscrabble streets of Chicago.
When graduating from high school, Wilson had no plans or goals.
He joined the Navy and excelled on high-level aptitude exams, most critically the Nuclear Propulsion Exam, which led him on his career path of becoming a nuclear chemist.
Within two years, he had earned 140 college credit hours, and he held a job involving chemistry on nuclear reactors.
“That I didn’t see coming, but I scored the highest and was in a class with five [white] males,” he said. “I was 17, and they were in college, but I was the only one who passed the exam.”
After three years on a submarine and six years in the Navy, Wilson took a job with Exelon Corp. as a nuclear chemist and nuclear chemistry instructor.
“This part of my journey forced me to be more strategic in my thinking and planning. It not only helps me become more focused and more responsible, but it allows me to help others, including some of my family members,” said Wilson, whose also the co-founder of the Legacy Initiative, a nonprofit that has already provided mentorship to more than 2,500 students.
Earlier this year, Wilson impressed members of Congress when he provided testimony in front of the Subcommittee on Energy and Power on the committee’s 21st Century Workforce legislation, which seeks to increase awareness of the opportunities available in energy and manufacturing and give citizens of underrepresented communities the opportunity to be educated and trained for these jobs.
“Our paths, like the ones funded and supported by this bill, ensures that my 5-year old son, Charles Wilson II, and others in his generation don’t have to experience poverty and can start to build the generation of wealth and opportunity that evaded the generations before them.” Wilson told Congress.
He’s scheduled to meet with Baltimore colleges, stakeholders, economic development council members and others to implement a program locally that will provide grants and scholarships to help facilitate training for youth.
“We want to create among the students an army of future mentors, and we want to invest in new mentors,” Wilson said, noting that he knows that it’ll take some time. He wants to eradicate youth unemployment, which he considers a critical element in breaking the cycle of poverty.
“I want to deliver to these young people something to aspire to. These STEM and nuclear jobs are high-paying jobs with highly skilled workers,” he said.
“But these are jobs that can be had with just a high school diploma and two years of certification, so you’re talking about a turnaround from high school in a relative short period of time as opposed to the traditional four-year college education and all of the loan and other debt that it carries.”
Wilson said the quick turnaround is important to often-impatient youth.
“Because, they’ve been disappointed so much and lied too so many times and sold dreams, you have to make it real to them, and I show them that this is real. And when they look at me, they can see themselves because I’m still a relatively young man,” he said.
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