|
In the interest of speed and timeliness, this story is fed directly from the Associated Press newswire and may contain spelling or grammatical errors.
|
Report: LAUSD consultants profit with little oversight
Monday April 21, 2003
LOS ANGELES (AP) The Los Angeles Unified School District has
paid real estate consultants handsome fees in its multibillion
dollar school-building program while providing little oversight or
accountability, according to a newspaper report.
A 12-page report by an inspector general found that the nation's
second-largest school district contracted with senior facilities
executives at ``absurd'' rates without competitive bidding or any
measures to evaluate performance or cost effectiveness, the Los
Angeles Daily News reported Sunday.
The four executives examined in the study by Inspector General
Don Mullinax's staff were paid between $200 and $300 an hour for
long-term, full-time assignments a rate that one real estate
expert said is two to three times above industry standards.
According to the audit, one consultant, who initially lacked a
real estate broker license, billed the district nearly $1 million
for work he did over a two-year period far exceeding the $250,000
annual salary of Superintendent Roy Romer.
The report highlighted several instances where consultants
billed the district thousands of dollars for attending meetings.
Jim McConnell, the district's chief of facilities, said the
consultants helped the district acquire 440 acres of land for 80
school projects in a very short time, apply for $839 million in
state funding, and move projects forward at a pace once thought to
be impossible.
``We have 90 percent-plus of the land at our disposal now to
build these schools. That's phenomenal,'' he said. ``When I got
here two years ago, I don't think there was any hope that we would
be able to do that.''
McConnell said that since the Inspector General's Office
launched its investigation a year and a half ago, new procedures
have been put in place to ensure adequate oversight. The district
has since gone out for bids on its facilities consultant contracts
and have set the hourly rate at $175 to $225.
There are now also greater budget controls in place with a
project's expenditures broken into real estate, design and
construction.
``Things have changed quite a bit,'' McConnell said. ``The
greatest evidence is that we have these positions bidded through an
RFP (request for proposal).''
(Copyright 2003 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)
|