$368M going to highest bidders?

Two Journal reports this week of interest to taxpayers.  One about APS awarding a contract to the highest bidder, link, and another about the school board and senior administration's quest for another $368M to spend on our behalf, in our stead.

School bond issue and mill levy elections are the means by which taxpayers exert their will upon the politicians and public servants who will spend hundreds of millions of tax dollars.  A fair question to ask is, how well are they spending them?  Are they being spent effectively and efficiently?

Did they pay $800 apiece for board member chairs, or not?

There is a record to examine.  If taxpayers want to see how their money will be spent, they want to see how their money just was spent.

If APS COO Brad Winter did a good job spending the last few hundreds of millions of dollars, it it's a good indication that he can spend the next few hundred million dollars effectively and efficiently.

When asked to produce a candid, forthright and honest accounting of spending at 6400 Uptown Blvd, Winters did not.

For some reason, he doesn't want us to see it.

Either that, or he just doesn't have any records in the first place.

At the time this spending was going on, independent auditors found that APS administrators like Winters, were spending upwards of $50K at a whack "without involving Purchasing."  The auditors found inadequate standards, inadequate accountability, and inadequate record keeping, link.

The rub here is that students really do need buildings and the only way to end the out of our control spending of our resources is to cut off the money.

Either he produces a candid, forthright and honest accounting of spending at 6400 Uptown Blvd, or we don't trust him with $368 million more.

The Journal will support the mill levy and bond issue, and never report that a candid, forthright and honest accounting of spending at 6400 Uptown Blvd has never been produced.




 photos Mark Bralley