By ALFREDO ALVARADO

Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg got himself into a nasty food fight that left schoolchildren hungry at lunchtime while outside contractors got fat by ripping off the Dept. of Education. The city squandered a chance to save $15 million in tax
revenue as it allowed corrupt and wasteful practices to flourish in the school food delivery system.

At the start of the school year, as many as 11 schools throughout the city experienced major problems with the delivery of food by vendors. A shortage of delivery trucks and poor planning by the Dept. of Education and the private companies forced P.S. 126 on the Lower East Side to serve lunches of a hard-boiled egg, half a corn on the cob and breakfast leftovers. Things got so bad there that school workers borrowed food from nearby P.S. 1, P.S. 124 and P.S. 134. In the Bronx, some schools were relying on food handouts from Lehman High School.

“Now that private vendors have shown they can’t handle the load, leaving school children hungry, it’s time for DOE to reassign food delivery to experienced city employees,” said Veronica Montgomery-Costa, President of Dept. of Education Employees Local 372 and of DC 37.

White paper pointed out problems
Throughout the five boroughs, Local 372 represents 26,000 school employees, such as aides, cafeteria workers, crossing guards and substance abuse counselors. Food delivery workers are in locals 372 and 983.

The union warned the city administration about waste, corruption and inefficiency in the delivery system. “Two years ago in our white paper, we pointed out the problems with private, outside food vendors,” said DC 37 Executive Director Lillian Roberts. “Our members are already on the job, day in and day out, ready and able to deliver and prepare the children’s meals. DOE should let our members do the work.”

The private vendors deliver frozen foods using non-refrigerated trucks, a direct violation of the recommendations of the U.S. Dept. of Agriculture. Meanwhile, 15 DOE refrigerated trucks sit idle in a Long Island City parking lot.

In early August, three vendors — Driscoll, Watermelon Plus and Louis Foods — got about $35 million in contracts to provide all the food to the city’s 1,200 schools. Now, instead of using city workers to close the delivery gap, the DOE plans to add three more vendors. “There are able and willing workers in the system who can make those deliveries,” said Ms. Montgomery-Costa.

According to a 2002 DC 37 white paper on contracting out, “Better Services for Less,” DOE could save a minimum of roughly $15.3 million dollars by cutting the average cost per case to deliver food to the public schools. The school system has paid private vendors up to $6.64/case, while in-house delivery by union members costs only $1.80/case.

The report also warned that “companies engaged in price gouging” by manipulating the current bidding system,” and charged that DOE lost over $126 million dollars to these companies.

Spearheading the Anti-Trust Division of the U.S. Justice Dept. as it uncovered the widespread collusion among food vendors to shut out competition and raise their prices was Joel Klein. His team convicted
12 companies and 21 individuals for rigging the contract bidding from 1996 to 1999.

Now Mr. Klein is chancellor of the city school system, but the waste and corruption continue. Richard Condon, special commissioner of investigation for the school system, released a report last year (see excerpts at left) that documented continuing bid-rigging leading to “millions of dollars of wasted expenditures on excessively priced food contracts.”

“Hiring costly, inept private vendors for an essential service like school meals adds overhead, undermines quality, and shortchanges our children and our communities,” said Ms. Montgomery-Costa.
She joins Ms. Roberts in a simple message to Mayor Bloomberg and Chancellor Klein: “Stop wasting the taxpayers’ money and let our members do the work.”