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| Wireless Generation |
Enough is enough. CityTime, theft by NYC BOE consultants all the time, sneaky contract implementation (see below) all add up to one thing: the New York City Board of Education wants money to go to them, and NOT the children they are there to serve. The fraud is rampant, and everyone is turning a deaf ear.
Now we hear that the Department has to cut free breakfasts for children this summer, and a wonderful savings of $11 million:
July 7
NYC Free Summer Meals Program for Children
FOX News NY, July 6, 2011
Antwan Lewis
New York City schools officials announced the resumption of the summer lunch program for children.
However, the office of schools Chancellor Dennis Walcott has had to reduce the number of sites serving those meals by 100; a 22 percent drop to cut nearly $11 million from the school’s food budget.
Wolcott said the locations that were cut were underutilized and now the program is more efficient.
The free summer meals program is the only healthy food some New York City children may get. The program serves breakfast and lunch.
No registration, documentation, or identification is required. Indeed children don’t have to live in New York City or be enrolled in public school to get a free breakfast or lunch, according to the program’s website.
The free meal program is open to children 18 and under and runs through September 2.
My solution: Let's stop feeding Tweed, give the money to feed children breakfast throughout the city of New York, every day until school starts in September.
We can do this.
Betsy
Ed Dept. evaded state law to pay $287,500 to controversial consultant, controller charges
BY Rachel Monahan, DAILY NEWS, June 26th 2011
LINK
The city Department of Education evaded state law to pay a controversial consultant $287,500, officials with the city controller's office charge.
Even after the Education Department's $20 million teacher-recruitment contract with The New Teacher Project got rejected in March on technical grounds, the city sneaked through three payments last month, the officials charge.
"We have requested a meeting with DOE to address their persistent attempts to circumvent the Education Law and pay outside consultants without registered contracts," said Mike Loughran, a spokesman for Controller John Liu.
A review by Liu's office after it discovered the New Teacher Project payments found that the city Department of Education also attempted to pay $1.3 million to Wireless Generation.
The company is now owned by Rupert Murdoch's News Corp. and overseen by former city Schools Chancellor Joel Klein.
Liu's office blocked that payment because it had rejected the Wireless Generation contract earlier this month, saying Klein had not filed a necessary letter recusing himself from involvement in the contract.
The city Law Department and the city Department of Education, however, consider both contracts to be valid and are not recognizing the controller's rejection.
In a Wednesday letter to Deputy Controller Geneith Turnbull, city Law Department Contracts Division Chief Steven Stein Cushman blasts the controller's attempts to thwart its deal with The New Teacher Project, calling it "not consistent with the Education Law.
"Accordingly, the DOE rejected your return of the [New Teacher Project] contract and deemed the [New Teacher Project] Contract registered," he wrote.
rmonahan@nydailynews.com
