The $550 Million Bloomberg Plans To Spend On Tech At The DOE Must Be Frozen

Given the news yesterday that an outside consultant hired to provide Internet access to NYC schools by the NYCDOE was stealing millions from the city from 2002-2008 and that two major DOE vendors - I.B.M. and Verizon - were involved in helping the consultant to defraud the city, Bloomberg CANNOT be allowed to spend $550 million on technology upgrades to schools this year even as he lays off 4,666 teachers and lets another 1,500 teaching jobs go by attrition in order to save $300 million.

The technology upgrade contracts MUST be frozen until an outside independent auditor is allowed to see just who is being paid to do what in these contracts.

Not ONE teacher can be laid off while these financial shenanagins by Bloomberg, the DOE, the outside consultants and the DOE vendors go on without investigation.

After CityTime, after the questions raised by Daily News columnist Juan Gonzalez about other outside consultants hired by the DOE and now this arrest and revealed fraud involving I.B.M. and Verizon, the time has come to take away the mayor's dictatorial power over the school system and contracting.

It is very apparent that the mayor cannot be trusted with either.

The seriousness of these charges and the companies involved in the scheme to defraud the city cannot be overstated.

As Comptroller John Liu said in a statement yesterday:

“Federal charges once again, that a consultant has stolen millions from the taxpayers are infuriating enough. Even more disconcerting, however, are indications that corporations with billions of dollars in City business have aided and abetted and profited from the scam. As with the CityTime scandal, oversight of subcontracting is acutely needed right now.”

That is especially so when Bloomberg is laying off all these teachers even as the subcontractors and vendors rob the city blind of millions.