On Tuesday, June 11, 2024, the Montgomery County Board of Education has $14.2 million in spending on their Consent Agenda item 6.1. The Consent Agenda is for items that don't need any discussion and are to be approved without question.
On June 11th, $10.3 million of that $14.2 million is for purchases that are being made without bids. In some cases the purchases are just because some MCPS administrator wanted to buy the product or service. The items are listed as either "extensions" or some reference is made to some out of state contract or "bridge" but there is no explanation or verification of either excuse.
The Montgomery County Inspector General has already exposed that MCPS' use of the word "bridge" in describing a contract from another jurisdiction is useless. MCPS administrators freely use that word even when they are not obtaining the same terms as the other jurisdiction. See Page 4 of the IG Report. All of the "bridge" purchases have the same status as the "extensions" and show that MCPS has not bid out these purchases to obtain the most competitive prices.
What could be the savings if MCPS put out this one day of purchases for competitive bids?
And that's just on one Consent Agenda item. There are 23 more Consent Agenda purchases.
The Board of Education won't discuss any of this spending while claiming that the school system is about to collapse for the want of $30 million.
Noone seems to care. It's very sad that only a few apparently scrutinize these purchases.
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