Last week one of CCSD's outsourced day porters filed a class-action lawsuit against the Charleston County School District. As you know, problems concerning final paychecks have been festering ever since those day porters were outsourced. Superintendent McGinley neglected to inform the Board last Monday night, but finally did after Monday's meeting when a Board member inquired why he had not been told.
The class action is for $7500 for the individual, but perhaps a hundred individuals are involved. The jury is still out on whether this outsourcing, which saved the district money on the backs of its least-advantaged former employees, will even save money.
Meanwhile, CCSD appears to have outsourced its maintenance supply and equipment warehouse to Grainger, a private company. As Grainger takes over control of the district's orders, will it reprice materials at a higher rate from its own catalogue?
Just another example of how CCSD handles OPM. Time for an audit.
Thursday, March 01, 2012
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5 comments:
I thought Cindy Coats was on top of this. She is vice chairman of the school board and chairman of its Audit and Finance Committee. Looks like she is just going along with whatever the district says. Does she really understand any of it?
The whole out-sourcing mess began when Michael Bobby arrived in early 2008.
The school board is about to authorize its regular annual procurement audit. It is unfortunate that Michael Bobby is in charge of this audit of his own operations. There will be nothing independent about this audit unless Cindy Coats and her committee take responsibility instead of just putting a rubber stamp to whatever the CFO says.
It would be a good idea for the auditors to receive public comments, but with Michael Bobby in charge of an audit of his own office, that won't happen. Too bad. If Cindy Coats wants to do it right, she should do whatever it takes to make this audit worth the paper used in its final report. Just like last year's audit, major problems were identified but the board took the CFO at his word that these were minor and had been corrected. Not true. Now it's Ms. Coat's turn.
How many law suits does CCSD have in the courts and what is this costing us?
I heard school board members asked McGinley for a list of court cases and the costs months ago, and she has promised to give it to them. So far she has given them nothing.
The problems at SC State University sound very much like what is going on at CCSD. Too much influence from special interests. Too little accountability and transparency. The only thing missing is a state investigation into criminal activities and fiscal misappropriation of public funds. The state has at least started the process of investigating the problems in Orangeburg. The amount of money and the number of students at risk in Charleston is far greater than at SC State. We need a credible audit of what is going on in Charleston. The SC State problems will be small by comparison.
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