School Board: Contracting System Not Broken, But Improving

Minneapolis Public Schools board members defended Tuesday night what they say are improvements in the district's contracting process after some have alleged the system is broken.

In a two-part series published in the Twin Cities Daily Planet on Monday and Tuesday, reporter Sheila Reagan revealed inconsistencies in the district's contracting system that led to Don Allen, a noted critic of the district, receiving a $15,000 contract to produce public-relations videos for the MPS. 

Former board member Chris Stewart was quoted in Reagan's article questioning how much oversight the board members have over to whom contracts are awarded. Like many districts, MPS relies heavily on local property tax levies, which must be approved by voters. So public confidence in the district is crucial.

Reagan, a freelance journalist, also reports for Southwest Minneapolis Patch.

Board member Alberto Monserrate said, “I want to dig deeper into these issues” presented in the article. “We've been deferring to staff regarding recommendations, but up to now I have not felt that there were any issues.”

Monserrate said he be believed that improving the district's transparency was critical to sustaining residents' trust.

“It's more important than ever that the public trust what we do with their money,” he said.

Board chair Jill Davis said she believes the district is on the right track to fixing the problems identified in the report.

“As a former parent activist, I can say that there's been a dramatic improvement in the information that I get from the administration,” she said. “Five, six years ago, I would not have been able to say that.”

Nonetheless, Davis criticized media concern for a $15,000 contract, when the district's annual budget runs into the hundreds of millions of dollars.

Davis and board member Jenny Arneson said that they see improvements since the district began publishing details of contracts online, so residents can review them. Davis defended the district's extraordinary delay in responding to Reagan's requests for potentially embarrassing, contract-related documents by citing the district's limited “human capacity” to find and assemble the requested materials. Reagan submitted requests under the Minnesota Government Data Practices Act on Feb. 22, but still had not received critical documents, including a copy of the $15,000 contract, by the time the story was published.

“It's not OK to take that long to respond,” she said, “but money, people, and time are scarce.”

Looking to the future, Davis said that she had confidence in a new system recently put in place to help board members track individual contracts, which would help board members monitor contract recipients more closely than they do now. The current system relies heavily on recommendations by district staff.