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GCACS – It gets BETTER! Bidding Laws broken?

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From Today’s Gloucester Daily Times

IG: Bidding laws broken

On Thursday state Inspector General Gregory Sullivan, whose investigation of the state’s approval of the Gloucester charter provided a legal basis for much of the lawsuit, told the Times that, at the request of Gloucester’s state lawmakers, he has since investigated and concluded that the hiring of ModSpace broke state competitive bidding laws.

The procurement laws, meant to prevent the waste of public dollars, require public schools and other government entities to seek competitive bids for all large construction projects.

In the case of the modular classrooms, Gloucester Community Arts did not seek bids; ModSpace was hired and the units ordered through Mick Lafata, the owner of the permanent site that the Gloucester Community Arts Charter School GCA is leasing. The charter school is not paying anything additional beyond its lease to install the modulars.

Sullivan, citing a recent Supreme Judicial Court ruling in the procurement case concerning new University of Massachusetts Lowell dorm rooms, said the lease arrangement should not allow the charter to skirt the procurement law.

“Our internal conclusion was that the process they were using was a violation of the state’s competitive bidding laws,” Sullivan said. “They are doing it under the cover of the lease, but really they are designing the school. In this case, if they are designing it and directing it, they have to go by the public procurement rules.”

The inspector general’s office does not have its own prosecutorial powers, so Sullivan said he passed his findings along to Attorney General Martha Coakley and is awaiting a response.

A spokesman for Coakley yesterday said he could neither confirm nor deny an investigation.

http://www.gloucestertimes.com…

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Comments

  1. Yeah, and the vendor they did use wound up screwing the job up and the school opening was delayed for weeks.  So, you know, another fail for private enterprise operating outside any kind of regulatory constraints.

  2. I wonder what our candidates for auditor, especially Sec. Reville’s former cabinet partner Suzanne Bump would say about this use of taxpayer dollars?

  3. That’s an excellent question Peter — a school deemed to have been inappropriately granted/approved, apparently in violation of construction/contractor bidding laws spending taxpayer dollars? I’d love to hear where all the auditor candidates weigh in on this — as well as the Attorney General’s office — Coakley has this ball in her court now.. today.. what’s happening on that front?  

    • I wrote to the Bump campaign to ask if she had any opinions about the Gloucester charter affair.  I got a nice note back from someone asking if I wanted to participate in campaign activities.  I wrote to that person hoping that someone might actually read my letter and heard nothing.

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      p>I wonder if she’s reluctant to be critical of her former colleagues in the Patrick/Murray administration?

  4. are you saying that the modulars are being paid out of pocket by the owner and not by using taxpayer dollars.

    • My post above is an excerpt from the GDT story — the lease payments to the landlord are directly paid by the GCA which gets its funding from the taxpayer. Their lease agreement puts the responsibility of providing space for the school on the property owner, if there are added or unexpected expenses it may well come out of the landlord’s profit/income, but as for who is paying for all this? Ultimately it’s all tax payer funds.

        • can be told in the lease agreement.  Is this a capital lease?  Capital leases typically hold that the leasee is responsible for capital improvements, which are laid out in the lease.  If it’s a capital lease and it’s been structured in such a way as to skirt public bidding laws….then “Lucy got some ‘spaining to do.”  

  6. Competing updates:
    http://www.gloucestertimes.com…

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    p>http://www.wickedlocal.com/glo…

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    p>What’s interesting about this newest revelation is the “process” by which it has come about… Now I’ll paint what I believe is the “normal” path as I know it: the GCA board, would in a properly noticed meeting vote to approve the new location and further to request both an extension beyond their Sept. 13th date, and request the DESE approve their choice for the new location.  The DESE would then decide on both the location, to determine its suitability as a school, and the extension. They would then let the GCA know of their decision who would then broadcast this to the parents of the enrolled students…

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    p>But in the Alice in Charterland world we live in, this is apparently the way it works: Knowing that the likelihood of their temporary accommodations being ready in time for their extended opening date, the executive director seeks alternatives. Then, without any properly noticed public meeting, without a vote on either a change of venue or an extension the executive director announces to the parents at a pot luck dinner that the new temporary temporary school location will be in a neighboring city. Now of course knowing full well that the GCA Board is stringent in their adherence of the Open Meeting Law which requires the posting of a board meeting 48 hours in advance of said meeting (not including weekends) it is inconceivable that there has been any serial board communication and deliberation on this topic over the past couple of weeks leading to a consensus. It’s also inconceivable that they made this non-publicly deliberated decision as a group since they haven’t met for several weeks having failed at their last meeting to achieve a quorum.

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    p>Interestingly, Commissioner Chester is currently out of town and apparently will not make any decisions on this plan until Monday (which seems kind of odd since there isn’t a formal request from the GCA Board in front of him on which to decide in the first place). But so comfortable is the GCA that this latest hiccup will be greeted with yet another rubber stamp, they felt obliged to announce that next Wednesday, the GCA will open its doors in Rockport prior to any official or legal actions having taken place, in a facility that has yet to be determined as suitable for an elementary and early grade middle school…. Wow… And folks wonder why there’s such cynicism about how government really works!  

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