Lawmakers should shelve bill granting sole contract authority

WHILE Oklahoma faces many pressing problems, few would rank “too much oversight in state contracting” among them. Yet that seems to be the view of the House Common Education Committee.

This week members of that committee passed House Bill 1667, which among other things requires that the “State Department of Education” seek bids from vendors to provide state tests in grades 3 through 12. The bill then declares that the “Department shall award contracts based on the selected proposals that were submitted” and removes the state Board of Education from oversight of the contracting process.

Here’s the problem: The phrase “State Department of Education” in this context effectively means one person: the state superintendent. The superintendent heads the department and everyone at the agency works for the superintendent. So the bill’s practical effect is to allow one person in Oklahoma government to award multimillion-dollar contracts for statewide tests in Oklahoma schools.

Under current law, those contracts are awarded by a vote of the state Board of Education, which includes the superintendent and six gubernatorial appointees. Among other things, the board serves to safeguard against any improper activity when contracts are awarded.

That’s an important check and balance, because there have been many cases nationwide where education contracting scandals have occurred even when safeguards are in place.

In 2015, Barbara Byrd-Bennett, who headed Chicago Public Schools, pleaded guilty to a felony count of wire fraud “for steering multimillion-dollar no-bid contracts to a former employer in exchange for the promise of up to $2.3 million in kickbacks,” the Chicago Tribune reported.

Last year, federal officials filed criminal charges against 12 current or former Detroit Public Schools principals, an assistant superintendent and a vendor in an illegal bribery and kickback scheme. It involved fraudulent invoices for school supplies that were never delivered between 2002 and 2015. Prosecutors alleged school officials received $908,518 in bribes while the vendor reaped approximately $2.7 million.

In 2012, the superintendent of the fourth-largest school district in New Jersey was convicted of devising inflated insurance contracts and extorting up to $2 million from brokers as kickbacks.

In Oklahoma, Skiatook Superintendent Gary Johnson was convicted in 2013 of accepting $10,000 in bribes from a custodial vendor in exchange for turning a blind eye to $570,000 in excessive charges.

Human nature being what it is, there’s a strong need to have independent voices reviewing such contracting decisions — people who can’t be fired if they disagree with a superintendent’s recommendation. To give one person the power to single-handedly award multimillion-dollar contracts is a bad idea. Lawmakers should shelve HB 1667.