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Parent irritation at Portland Public Schools has recently focused on the millions of dollars the district awards in no-bid contracts.
The district spent more than $11,000 last year on a nine-page spreadsheet, which analyzed voting results by precinct in four recent PPS bond or levy elections.
The work—which PPS contracted out to the political consultant who helped manage the district's successful 2014 levy renewal—typically takes no more than a day, two political consultants tell WW.
Instead, Jeremy Wright billed PPS $75 an hour for more than 150 hours of work.
Jon Isaacs, public affairs chief at PPS, issued the no-bid contract to Wright four days after Wright submitted his final bill to the 2014 levy campaign. At that point, the campaign had a deficit of around $20,000.
Isaacs, who has worked with Wright on political campaigns, defended the PPS payments, saying the work was "very time-consuming" and required meticulous data entry.
Wright declined to answer questions.
There are several.
The contract says the work would "assist districtwide boundary review as well as school community outreach and grassroots marketing efforts."
In an interview, however, Isaacs told WW the work had nothing to do with the districtwide boundary review, which is seeking to redistrict schools to balance lower-school enrollment. He called the inclusion of that detail in the contract a mistake.
The work, Issacs said, is actually supposed to help the PPS board of education make informed decisions about its next construction bond campaign. The board is currently aiming for the November 2016 ballot.
For more than $11,000, Wright produced no written report to accompany his nine-page spreadsheet. So it's not clear how the data might inform the decision to pursue a bond. Isaacs told WW he would analyze the figures in order to tell board members what they mean.
Political consultants who viewed the spreadsheet said it wasn't clear to them what advice one would draw from the precinct analysis. However, sometimes that kind of number crunching helps find "voting mines"—i.e., places in a district that can turn out extra "yes" votes.
In a follow-up email, Isaacs declined to say how the data would inform the board's decision.
Public agencies can conduct work of political nature, if the measure the agency is working on hasn't been put to the ballot yet, says Molly Woon, a spokeswoman for the Oregon Secretary of State's Office.
Mike Rosen, a PPS board member who's been railing against no-bid contracts, says he's concerned any time he hears PPS may have overspent.
"I don't care if it's $12,000 or $5,000," he says.
Willamette Week