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8/30/2007
When you're in the muck, get the heck out
Have you been following this Racine Unified School District (RUSD) mess? By way of quick background, RUSD hired the Public Business Consulting Group (PBCG) to perform its business manager functions – and agreed to pay them a percentage of any savings they could find and capture. That in itself is pretty strange. As a result, PBCG was paid $1.8 million in taxpayer dollars in less than two years! That’s just absolutely unbelievable.
In a May 22 FoxPolitics article, Appleton School District’s Asst. Superintendent of Business Services does a tremendous job, in language you and I can understand, breaking down the myth behind PBCG claims.
Fast forward three months, as preliminary results of an investigation into PBCG goings-on have been released to the RUSD school board. RUSD’s superintendent resigned this week, accused harshly by his board of mismanaging PBCG’s contract.
According to press reports, now-former Superintendent Tom Hicks is the bad guy, having “contracted with” and allegedly mismanaged PBCG and hence, some serious taxpayer money. Of course, the Board had to approve PBCG’s contract (and payments?) – why aren’t they firing themselves?
And here’s the latest news – The Racine Journal Times reports last night that the board may be held hostage by the current PBCG contract – and that “it’s unlikely they will outright end their relationship.”
That, in spite of what the August 20 confidential attorney/client communication to RUSD has to say about PBCG:
“It appears that PBCG inadequately performed some of its general duties.” - it failed to ensure that RUSD reconciled its cash accounts to the General Ledger for nearly ten months. Accordingly, RUSD’s financial control and recording system cannot be relied upon to accurately report the results of transactions.
- PBCG was charged with implementing the Lawson Enterprise Resource Planning system. That implementation has failed.
- …at some point PBCG employees may have started approving PBCG invoices.
- PBCG might have been overpaid because it billed RUSD for employee services after the employee’s service ended.
- Nearly all payments [to PBCG] are based on future estimates, which contradicts the requirement that PBCG achieve “actual savings” before it is compensated.
And on and on and on.
Here’s more – from a former school board member in St. Francis, another district that suffered at the hands of PBCG. (The article is written despite a gag order as a result of a St. Francis/PBCG settlement.)
Ok, the public doesn’t have the full report, and to date, the Board hasn’t been 100% forthcoming. But as a state and federal taxpayer, PBCG has some of my money. As said by the former St. Francis school board member and a number of other professionals I spoke with – perhaps it’s not time to continue working with these guys – it’s time to call in the District Attorneys.
Perhaps as a first step, the Racine School Board need take a look at the DPI’s “Conduct and Competency Review”, required to gain a license to manage a school’s business affairs (see page 3 of the .pdf). They can’t pull a manager’s license, but they might use the questions to consider whether they want to work with a particular business management firm.
So… if any reader out there has worked with PBCG, would you contract with them again? In addition to a heavy reliance on avoidance of criminal convictions, should the DPI licensing process consider an applicant’s ethics?
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