We’ve heard the rhetoric for years. A comprehensive audit of the Board of Education will be a roadmap for savings, efficiency, more dough invested in kids to reform the school system. The BOE passed a flatline budget this year, at the urging of Mayor Bill Finch. Do I hear some buyer’s remorse? The budget didn’t allow room for the future roadmap, according to the business community chief involved in the BOE study.
An update from Paul Timpanelli, chief executive of the Bridgeport Regional Business Council, to his membership.
On Tuesday, October 12, the leadership of the Business Council will be making another appearance before the Bridgeport Board of Education relative to our long-standing project to improve financial accountability / transparency and operational efficiency within the Bridgeport school system. It hardly seems possible, but believe it or not, we have now been at this for over four years!
It is rather ironic that an initiative that is intended to improve efficiency that was scheduled to take two years, has now taken almost five years. But, be that as it may, it remains our intention to complete this important work. At the meeting on the 12th, we will be asking for two things:
1) the Bridgeport Board of Education’s agreement to proceed to contract with our consultant for Phase IV and;
2) the Board’s commitment to invest in the project, even though the decision was made to not include any money for this work in the adopted FY 2010-2011 budget.
As a result of the Bridgeport Board of Education’s decision not to fund Phase IV, our ability to raise the needed dollars to complete this work as originally intended has been severely hampered. Therefore, Phase IV work, pending the Board of Education’s approval, will be somewhat redefined. It is now our intention to accomplish three things with Phase IV work. First, we intend to provide technical resources to assist the Board of Education with implementation of more of the recommendations that came out of the Phase III report. Second, we intend to ask our consultant to undertake added reviews of operational systems not looked at within the Phase III work to enable the uncovering of yet more efficiency opportunities. Third, we will then provide technical assistance to the Bridgeport Board of Education to enable implementation of these added discoveries. Although we will not undertake the complete operational review that we originally intended, the review we will undertake will be meaningful and substantive.
Of the almost $7 million in efficiency opportunities uncovered in Phase III, the Bridgeport Board of Education has, to its credit, now implemented almost one half of those. It is our opinion that we are now likely to uncover an equal amount with our Phase IV work. Even if we uncover only one half of that in additional savings, the overall result will be that over $10 million will have been uncovered that could then be redirected back into the classroom to have a direct impact on improving student performance.
Improving student performance has been our bottom-line intention all along. By delving into school operations to improve accountability and find efficiencies, we wanted to redirect resources back into the classroom to improve outcomes. We committed to the school board that once we can demonstrate that the money that was currently being spent was being spent efficiently, that we would then become partners with the school board to assist them in their quest for added resources.
Let us not forget the long-term goal here. This work is about improving student performance, so that the jobs environment that we are building in the greater Bridgeport region will ultimately be available for Bridgeport’s students. The students that are currently coming out of the system, generally speaking, are not adequately prepared to take on the jobs that will be available in this region. For society’s sake and for the sake of our employers, we want to change that situation.
Waste of money. This is Bridgeport not Trumbull. Bridgeport is too politically entrenched, too many sacred cows. Too many high-paid employees and consultants who are untouchable on both the city and BOE side. You can’t effect change without cleaning house.
Get the broom out.
Anna if you stop flying on that broom we could use it to clean house.
Not a waste of money.
Attempting to change an entrenched way of doing things is difficult. Keeping an elected body focused on that over a period of time is difficult.
It is widely agreed the Board of Education is failing a lot of kids. Education is very expensive to begin with. To have it be expensive and fail is wrong.
The two points together are a powerful incentive for continued change.
Definitely not a waste of money.
CHS and Anna, when you are sick, so sick you don’t know where to turn for an answer, it’s the wrong time to use a broom or a meat cleaver (to sacrifice the sacred cows). Get the right professional, who is great at examination and diagnosis, and then listen to the recommendation for surgery, diet, rehabilitation, etc. if you are serious about getting well. And when the problem is in the ‘body politic’ as well it gets difficult to cure the infection, reduce the swelling and redness and return it to a healthy state, because on the whole we don’t really wish to take the necessary medicine or endure the required surgery. So maybe it does take extra time?
There has been institutional resistance to this examination process from the beginning of Phase I. And there has been no enduring in-depth public reporting and accounting as to the progress in terms of specific accomplishments and savings by the CT Post. To readers of OIB that will come as no surprise. But it is necessary when the process stretches into three and now four parts and when money, once allocated as adequate, later only covers some of the topics or issues because of inflation (or is it the desire to shelter certain secrets or areas from research or oversight?) And whether Paul Timpanelli is your favorite trusted scorekeeper in all of this or not, you have to remember that short term Senator Rob Russo got State funds at one point, the Business Council has put up significant funds for the continuing study, as have the City and BOE, and it has not been cheap or easy.
Keep your spotlights turned on!!! Why not write in naming specifics on what needs research within the Bridgeport educational establishment. Change is underway because the status quo is not productive of necessary results on enough fronts.
Maybe the Post would print a Letter to the Editor from you complaining of their scant coverage of this annually very expensive part of the City establishment. It is when the unpleasant truths become apparent to enough people that productive change occurs!
*** Nothing’s changed with “too much to hide.” What the public really doesn’t know won’t hurt, no? State Education Dept. should conduct random audits on all public schools that are behind on the national Ed. levels. *** FORGETABOUTIT ***
Phase III
Get rid of school crossing guards.
Cut janitors in half.
Have schools starting at different times to save money on transportation.
It took 5 years and a couple of million bucks to do that!!!
Paul T–Take a hike. Get the alleged geniuses who run the BRBC to do this type of work for free. Come up with $7 million on your own and then let’s see where we go from there.
Bring back Ukeles. Bring back FRB. Send BRBC packing with all of these silly savings.
Waste of time.
I agree with CHS. Clean house of the unqualified people and the friends of friends and there might be a chance for the children of Bpt.
CHS & Mr BPT, I agree. CLEAN HOUSE NOW.
Delay, delay, delay and hope the citizens will forget.
We need the BOE audit.
Throw Timpanelli out, find him a job on DiNardo’s cranberry ditch. (By the way Sal how is your $8 million tax debt working out? Do you pay interest
on that debt?)
These people are against the citizens of Bridgeport, they should be ashamed, Sal the sleaze and Paul the money pimp, disgraceful in every sense of the word.
I totally agree with BEACON2. This partnership of private and public money is important. This Audit is important. The BOE needs to find the money to partner with the Business Community to do Phase IV. Yes several bad behaviors are entrenched but it will take the very best efforts of the business community and residents to help turn the steamroller around. There are efficiencies that can be had. The low-hanging fruit has been identified. The 30,000 Bridgeport school children deserve the positive results that this joint effort can produce. Get there on the 12th. Support the effort. Stop the stall tactics. Bridgeport has to do this together, business community AND residents … for the well-being of each and every child.
As for the former Bodine building move by the BOE to consolidate all of their offices, I am extremely disappointed that the Request for Proposals that was put on the street for other possible locations was so narrowly defined. It was impossible for other property owners to respond. In my opinion, the BOE should remain downtown and the City/BOE should look to consolidate all gov’t offices in one larger structure with a defined long term lease, say 20 years. Once the market improves, they would move the government workers to another location. Right now the government workers belong in the Downtown with the office workers providing the essential foot traffic that the retail establishments need to stabilize and grow. The same concept was used with the World Trade Center many years ago. When I worked for Governor Cuomo, hundreds of government workers were stationed in Towers One and Two. Once the market improved, they sent us to Fordham Road in the Bronx to occupy another building that needed tenants to bolster the retail in the area. For Bridgeport to successfully grow its tax base and reduce its ridiculously high tax rate of 42 mils, the Downtown has to lead the way so the neighborhoods are protected. In my opinion it is shortsighted public policy for the BOE to go to the former Bodine Building. Stamford moved all of their city and BOE workers into a former GTE building. That was a very smart move. They sold the old building on Atlantic Street as part of the UBS deal and now, 30 years later the most expensive property in Stamford is right next to the Railroad Station. Now that was smart real estate deal-making.
Did you notice in the Oct 3rd legal notices that the City’s Department of Finance is looking for a consultant to provide marketing/asset management services disposition of excess commercial municipal property its properties? How and when the city puts property on the market is critical to its future economic development. Short-term and long-term strategies are critical to the City’s future. It needs to be carefully thought through. Bargain-basement sales will kill Bridgeport’s future even though it may fill a short-term budget gap.
I Hardly agree with Nancy.
Low-hanging fruit!!!
She is talking about School Crossing Guards, Custodians and School Bus drivers and monitors.
How dare she refer to the working poor who are targeted by Paul Timpanelli as low-hanging fruit!
Get rid of the $100-an-hour consultants; the retread retirees; the excess administrators!
But none of these highly paid suburbanites came up on the BRBC chopping block. Not a one.
And let’s squeeze the working poor more by booting their cars, seizing their property, liening their homes.
Go for the low-hanging fruit. It’s more fun and less resistance than trying to make real change in how poorly the city is run.
Grin,
I want the teachers to have the resources and flexibility to teach. Everything else is on the table. New Haven just negotiated a union contract that gives the teachers flexibility but institutes a new evaluation system for teachers. Everything has to be on the table.
Where do BOE people go when they retire?
They come back as $500-a-day consultants.
I heard $650.
Nothing and I mean nothing will be done about the BOE and their excessive spending. The mayor really does not give a shit because he can claim he has no power over the BOE which in itself is BS. We do provide a small portion of the school budget.
The elected members of the BOE are all puppets. When you get elected to this board you are brought into a Special Room were they remove your brains and your ability to say NO. Perfect example: Leasing the Bodine Bldg, better yet all the administrators who retire and come back as consultants.
The elected members of the BOE all suffer from terminal dumb-ass. Who would rehire a school super who year after year has a 60-plus percent dropout rate? Our elected BOE members do this every year and Ramos has a permanent 3-year contract. This year no raise so the elected BOE members gave him health benefits until he and wife reach 65 no matter where he works.
Nothing will ever change in this city because everyone has their hand out.
Three board members and John Gomes were on the walkthrough of Bodine, TC. The deal is being watched and if it goes through it’s after major scrutiny. So when you say all the board members had their brains removed, that is not true. If they had not gone on that walkthrough it would have been a done deal by now.
Kudos to John Gomes. He is the first candidate since Joe Ganim to actually prepare himself for the job. I heard he attends the City Council meetings as well.
city hall smoker // Oct 7, 2010 at 6:41 pm
In response …
Thank you for noticing.
Our candidate is getting out to these crucial meetings.
What goes on behind “closed doors” is not ever going to be publicly known unless we keep our foot in the door …
The difference I hope all of us recognize is that John has to pursue a different path than Joe Ganim, or John Fabrizi … and yes, Bill Finch have taken!
Public trust, political baggage and the Bridgeport voter … No wonder the voter turnout on Bridgeport hovers around 14%.
The remaining 86% don’t trust anybody and therefore don’t vote …
This is the disaster our present and past leaders leave as their legacy …
Save the date … 9-13-2011
*** Too little too late, let’s see how they actually vote! Though credit is given for taking the time for a walk-through. *** FORGETABOUTIT ***
You are right on a portion of it but they are still going to vote in favor of Bodine and it is going to cost us millions.
If you are so worried about it going through TC, then attend a BOE meeting and make your voice heard. Gomes attends the meetings, I have seen him there. Bitching and moaning on a blog will not get your point across, bitching and moaning in front of the board and the parents and taxpayers will get your voice heard. Write to the Hartford Courant, the only newspaper in CT.
*** Would it really make a difference on the vote? Not really, the Mayor’s lobbying has been done; in other words, it’s a done deal! *** SOS ***
Nancy
You pushed for the BOE RFP and not a single downtown property owner submitted anything. It was in the POST last week that 10 Middle Street is almost half empty. NO rfp submission … did it just empty?
Are the 80 BOE employees keeping all the downtown restaurants open?
Didn’t the Mayor put a for sale sign on the BOE building? The Mayor will sell it and people will move in to support the local restaurants.
TC you should attend a BOE meeting and learn some facts. The BOE plan is to condense 5 operating locations into 1. One is a deathtrap and likely to be condemned. Does anyone care about the safety of those workers? 5 into 1 will produce efficiencies.
Doesn’t the mayor want a city center?
The BOE moves, the city can sell 3 buildings and put them back on the tax rolls plus get the $ from the sales.
Can anyone look down the road?
Bernstein. You are correct. I did appear at the BOE meeting and requested an RFP process. I didn’t think it was appropriate for the BOE to execute a multi-year lease without an open and competitive process. The BOE agreed and ordered an RFP to be issued. However it was a very restrictive RFP in my opinion. The vacant space in the downtown is evident but the property owners could not meet the restrictive requirements. I was hoping that saner minds would figure out and implement a true government office consolidation strategy. Not happening. A real disappointment. As for the downtown each and every set of feet that walk down the streets and frequents the retail and restaurant establishments is critical to the strengthening of the downtown. Really.
Aren’t you the merry cheerleader. The deathtrap you talk about is a garage that needs a roof. Of the 5 locations you mention, only two can be sold and the money from those sales goes to the city. This helps the children of Bridgeport how? Does the city increase the money it gives the BOE? With a 60% dropout rate making an expensive long-term investment in administration is a travesty, particularly in the worst economic climate since the great depression. You have 6 BOE members who would vote not to convict the murderers of the Petit family just because the other 3 voted to convict. And those 6 never even toured the Bodine building. Who is advising these people??? Previous BOE directors of operations had advanced degrees in engineering and architecture. Who the hell is the director today??? And if you think you can turn a dilapidated environmental disaster of a warehouse into safe, usable office space for $1.3M I have a bridge on Congress Street to sell you.
The people who say I should attend BOE hearings are correct I should attend more meetings. I have not spoken before this board but I found that speaking to this board is a total waste of time.
I may not have attended many meetings but I did do my research on the LLC that is going to get this bid. Still want to know who the unnamed partners in the LLC are.
It’s funny that none of my critics mention the lifetime medical benefits and the perpetual 3-year contract given to Ramos, a man who leads a school system with a 60% dropout rate.