EDITOR'S NOTE:The initial version of this editorial noted that the inspector general had cited a $22,000 contract paid to former Gloucester Community Arts board member Kate Ruff. However, the inspector general has written a new letter to the commissioner of education indicating that reference was false — that the contract he had initially pegged to Ruff was in fact an invoice to a law firm that was sent to the school in care of Ruff when she was on the board. The inspector has also apologized for any "inconvenience." The Times also apologizes, and we have deleted any reference to that issue here.
—
The letter sent by Inspector General Gregory Sullivan to the state's education commissioner regarding the Gloucester Community Arts Charter School's no-bid contracts doesn't really raise new questions regarding the school.
Indeed, the letter to Commissioner Mitchell Chester is primarily critical of the state Department of Education's poor oversight of the local school's policies.
But if, as Sullivan notes, the school still wasn't adhering to any hard-and-fast bid policy last fall — after the Attorney General's office had raised questions about the lack of bid openness on previous projects — and if, as charter school Colin Zick maintains, state law essentially exempts Massachusetts charter schools from normal public project bidding mandates in the first place — that should trigger an entirely new race to reform a process that seems so broken that Chester and the state board seem to have given up on fixing it.
There are a number of cases specific to Gloucester Community Arts that Sullivan should investigate. But on a larger scale, if charter schools are viewed as public — and they obviously are — they must be required to abide by the same bidding mandates as other public schools and agencies.
Requirements for putting contracts out to bid are in place to protect taxpayers. They ensure that cities, towns of school districts hire the contractor that offers the most cost-effective proposal — and they strive to ensure taxpayers don't get stuck funding contracts steered to officials' insider friends of family members.
In the charter's case, remember that a $48,000 no-bid charter school 2010 contract went to a company called FHO Partners, partially owned by the brother of state ed board chairwoman Maura Banta. So this is not the charter's or the state board's first step down this seedy path.
Setting a firm bottom line — perhaps any project over $4,999 — would be a start for requiring contracts be put out to bid.
But this entire quagmire deserves a deeper probe by the inspector general — and Commissioner Chester's full attention and compliance.
