Wappingers loosened district policies after audit; gives needed 'flexibility,' Bonk says

The Wappingers Central School District loosened its policies for obtaining professional services in light of criticism from the state Comptroller’s Office that the district was not following its own standards.

District Superintendent Dwight Bonk said the changes were needed not to satisfy a requirement of the Comptroller’s Office – the district faced no penalty following an audit showing it failed to obtain competitive bids on $5.1 million in services – but to have more flexibility to serve students while maintaining transparency in codifying their practices.

The changes include verbiage giving the district freedom to decide when reviews of competitive pricing are needed.

The altered policies were adopted by the school board Aug. 15 and were included in its corrective action plan promised to the Comptroller’s Office approved Sept. 12, in advance of the office releasing the audit to the public.

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The audit, conducted July 2020 through October 2021, found $5.1 million in payments were made without seeking alternative bids, of a total $7.6 million paid for professional services.

The majority of the non-competitive expenditures − $3.7 million on 24 providers − were for the special education department, on services for which they previously sought competition. The audit also found the district had not sought competition on its architect since 2012 and its attorney since 2015.

The audit noted those practices went against the district’s policy requiring the solicitation of competitive bids, and recommended the district act "in accordance" with that policy.

The revised document removed the requirement to seek competition for services dealing with special education, legal counsel and architects "due to their confidential and personal nature and/or the institutional knowledge acquired by the existing firms providing such professional services."

Bonk said those changes “give us that flexibility in certain areas where we need to move expediently to be as effective and efficient” as needed. "We strongly believe that it is in the best interest of our special education students” for the district “to be proactive and procure those services as quickly" as possible.

The revised policies also added a rubric of various elements on which a service provider can be judged beyond their quoted price, including reliability, skill, responsibility, integrity and moral worth, and others.

“We want to be fiscally responsible to our taxpayers, but we also need to have a rubric that we can agree upon to evaluate the quality of the services that are necessary,” Bonk said.

Smaller policy changes offer even more freedom to the district to choose when to seek competition. The phrase “when appropriate” now precedes the sentence “The designated district staff will prepare a comprehensive written request for proposals (RFP), which will contain critical details of the services sought.” And, the word “will” was replaced by “may” in reference to the district seeking new professional service proposals at least every three years.

Bonk said the policies and processes will be “refined as necessary.” He admitted the district had not been consistent in following its own policies for competitive bids, which must change.

“If we have it in a policy,” he said, “we need to do it.”