You Mean Bloomberg Can Control Health Care Costs?

Turns out Bloomberg can actually use his beloved free market to keep down costs for city employees - who knew?

Mayor Bloomberg has discovered the secret for saving the city $363 million in health care costs -- the threat of competition.

Bloomberg disclosed on his WOR Radio show today that Emblem Health, the city's longtime insurer, has said that for the first time in 15 years it won't increase premiums if it's contract is renewed next year.

The mayor said that would stabilize the city's annual health insurance tab at $6.4. billion and avert an increase of $363 million that had been anticipated in fiscal 2015, which begins on July 1.

Without changes, the city projected its health care bill would skyrocket to $8.3 billion in 2017.

Bloomberg said Emblem acted after his administration announced plans to test the market and seek new bids for coverage.

"It just shows how overpriced these services are," said the mayor.

Emblem covers about 95 percent of the city's employees, retirees and their families.

"We were convinced that city workers and retirees were not getting the best possible care at a competitive price," said Deputy Mayor Cas Holloway.

"Emblem Health's virtually unprecedented decision not to seek a rate increase for next year shows that we were right."

The mayor loves to talk up "competition" and "free markets" when it comes to public education.

Apparently it's a new idea for him when it comes to the companies that provide city employee benefits, however.

Of course I've always assumed he was full of crap with his free market and competition talk on most things.

I can't think of a mayor who's loved no-bid contracts with outside companies that have overrun costs of millions of dollars more than Mike Bloomberg.

That's how CityTime happened.

Same with the 911 system overruns.

In any case, here we are with $363 million in health care savings for fiscal 2015.

Let's remember that when the next mayor, whomever that is, claims poverty and says employees simply must contribute to health care costs or New York will immediately turn into Detroit.

For that matter, let's remember the next time some retired Unity hack writes the same crap.

$363 million in health care savings.

Hiring More Guidance Counselors

Last week, Comptroller John Liu called for the NYCDOE to hire more guidance counselors, specifically college counselors, to help students with their post-secondary plans.

In a report called “The Power of Guidance” released Thursday, Liu calls on the city Education Department to spend $170 million to hire an additional 1,612 high school guidance counselors.
That would bring bringing the total number of high school counselors to 2,907.

“Students need enhanced advising and guidance that address both the developmental and practical components of college planning and preparation,” the report states.

Guidance counselors in public schools are ideally positioned to help kids get into college, Liu argues, because they advise kids on academic and personal matters.

With 290,653 students enrolled in city high school, the additional counselors would establish a ratio of one counselor per 100 students.

 

I know many schools are starting to ratchet up the College and Career Readiness programs because Bloomberg has added a college metric to the school report cards.

Some college counselors have 400-500 students in their charge and now, with the College and Career Readiness plans spread to 9th, 10th, and 11th grades, they've got to worry about so much more than their seniors, the application process, SAT's and financial aid.

Adding college counselors to the system so that each counselor works with no more than 100 students makes total sense.

And so Bloomberg and the DOE will reject that call because a) it came from John Liu and Bloomberg hates Liu and b) it doesn't involve any no-bid tech contracts or hiring outside consultants for six figure salaries.

Why hire new college counselors for $55,000 a year when you can light that money on fire with tech projects, costly and useless education software and expensive outside consultants instead?

All The Mayor's Scandalized Men And Women (and Cougars)

So many scandals in the Bloomberg administration, you need a scorecard to tell who is who.

Here at Perdido Street School, we're big on accountability as well as baseball, so we thought we'd provide you with an Bloomberg Accountability Scandal Scorecard.

First, here's a picture of the mayor lecturing about the importance of accountability and performance.


Next, here's the latest Bloomberg administration official to be linked to a corruption - her name is Judith Hederman and she used to be the Department of Education's chief of financial operations until she perjured herself, uh, misspoke in an inquiry into corruption involving a DOE computer consulting partner:






Here's the NY Post on the Hederman scandal:

Judith Hederman, executive director of the Division of Financial Operations, was making $168,000 a year when she abruptly resigned last week, according to education officials.

The Office of the Special Commissioner of Investigation confirmed that it is investigating Hederman, 42, but declined to provide further details.

Court records show that the commissioner has been engaged in a lengthy probe of Future Technology Associates, a computer consulting firm that Hederman had overseen and shared offices with since as early as 2005.

FTA has a three-year, $43.2 million contract to integrate the DOE's payroll and finance system with that of the rest of the city's agencies.

Documents show the probe of the firm involves "allegations of corruption, conflicts of interest, unethical conduct or other misconduct."

That includes accusations that FTA has been hiring its workers through multiple contracts so that the "hourly fee for the consultant's services was marked up before being passed on to the DOE."

Hederman's husband also works for the DOE as an accountant. No word on whether he's a crook too, but it surely doesn't look good for Ms. Hederman. The Post notes that the allegations against Hederman and the company she was supposed to oversee, FTA, "echo recent charges filed against another DOE contractor, Willard (Ross) Lanham, who allegedly bilked the city of $3.6 million by using layers of subcontractors to jack up costs"

Which Brings us to the Lanham scandal. Below are pictures of DOE computer consultant Willard Lanham and his "cougar" wife, Laura. Lanham has been arrested for stealing millions from the DOE by overbilling the city and using the money to build his own real estate sub-development, including a street named for his now estranged wife. This story won't die because Laura, the estranged wife, is a self-described "cougar" who wants to star in a reality show and loves to blog about her conquests of younger men who like older women. You can see her fine work here. Unless you're trying to read the blog while on a computer with Internet set up by Willard Lanham - that wouldn't work so well because the work Lanham did didn't work so well.

So that's where some of the money that could have been used to save teachers from layoffs went - at least $3.6 million, at any rate, and perhaps a lot more since the work Lanham did was pretty crappy.

Below is a picture of another Bloomberg official who was supposed to oversee outside contractors but had to resign after it became clear that he was a) not doing any oversight of them b) allowing them to steal millions and c) may have been making money in the deal as well. His name is Joel Bondy and he is the former director of the NYC Office of Payroll Administration. You can read more about Bondy here and the CityTime scandal here.




Below is a picture of Cathie Black, former chancellor of NYC schools. Black is not accused of stealing any money, not yet, at any rate (though rumor has it she was given a six figure parting fee, which, if true, would be stealing in my book.) But I thought I'd add her photo to the mix because she really is an emblem of the cluelessness and corruption that the Bloomberg administration is. So, for old time's sake, here is a photo of Ms. Black:



Who will be the next person to make the Bloomberg Scandal Accountability Scorecard?

Hard to know, but since Comptroller John Liu is looking closely at many other contracts Bloomberg has signed with outside contractors, you can bet that there WILL be additions.

It's a shame that accountability at the DOE is ONLY for teachers and NOT for the people doing the oversight of the contractors, the contractors themselves or for Bloomberg.

But that's how it is in Bloomberg's New York.

Which is why we need a Bloomberg Scandal Accountability Scorecard in the first place.

DOE Consultant Wife Plans Reality Show Career

Want to know where some of the money DOE tech consultant Willard Lanham stole from the DOE ended up?

It ended up paying for the picture of his estranged wife - who blogs about sex and the pursuit of younger sugar daddies with lots of money to take of older women - at a site called cougarlife.com.

Here's the Daily News on the "cougar" angle to the DOE story:

Laura Lanham - the self-styled "cougar" still sharing a Long Island home with her estranged husband - believes she could become America's next big reality star.

"My life is already a reality show," she told the Daily News in her first interview since her spouse was charged with stealing $3.6 million in city school funds.

"You can't make this s--- up," the brunette mother of three said Friday at a Panera Bread on Long Island. "My reality is surreal. It's crazy."

Lanham, 42, was living in suburban obscurity until husband Willard surrendered Thursday in Manhattan Federal Court, charged with pocketing money designed to provide New York students with Internet access.

Suddenly, her writings and risque photos from the web site cougarlife.com are big news - as was her nasty three-year divorce struggle.

Financial problems forced her to stay in the same house with her husband despite their crumbling marriage, along Laura Lane - a street he built and named after her. The strange arrangement seems to work.

"It's a big house," she explained. "We have separate rooms ... I'm happy. I love my life."

In addition to her blog, Lanham once sent nude photos to Playboy and confessed that she's an exhibitionist.

"Sex sells, period," she said.

It sure does - just ask Mayor Bloomberg's pal, Rupert Murdoch, who has made an entire publishing career out of selling it - but let's be honest here, this woman wouldn't have had the capital to fund her "cougar" lifestyle if not for the DOE largesse her estranged husband lived off of for years courtesy of the Mayor of Money and Chancellor Klein.

Hell, this guy stole enough money to build his own real estate sub-development and name a street after his (now estranged) wife.

That's some largesse, wouldn't you say?

I would, and I think it IS the stuff of reality TV.

Perhaps we can see how other DOE tech consultants live and work, stealing money from the good people of New York while the Mayor of Money lays off hard working teachers and increases class sizes.

Oh, and the "technology" that Lanham put into the schools (dubbed "Project Connect" by the DOE)

It doesn't work.

That's why they're spending $550 million in the next fiscal year to upgrade the technology.

That too ought to be the subject of a TV show.

Call it Mayor Mike's Failed Mayoral Control of the NYC School System.

Or better yet, Bloomberg Sucks.

DOE Oversight - Or The Lack Of It

Special Commissioner of Investigation for city schools Richard Condon said the following about the oversight capabilities of the DOE on its outside consulting contract for Project Corrupt:

MANHATTAN — A former Department of Education computer consultant ripped off nearly $4 million from city schools to fund a lavish lifestyle — the latest in a string of black marks for city contractors, federal prosecutors announced Thursday.

William "Ross" Lanham allegedly blew the $3.6 million in cash on high-end cars, including a Lexus, Corvette, Porsche and Cadillac Escalade as well as real estate, including three homes on Long Island.

...

Lanham, who earned $1.7 million working for the DOE, surrendered to federal authorities Thursday morning on mail fraud and theft charges. He could face 20 years in jail if convicted.

IBM and Verizon, vendors for "Project Connect," are accused of turning a blind eye to the alleged scheme, according to a report by Richard Condon, Special Commissioner of Investigation for city schools, also released Thursday.

"IBM and Verizon, by their silence, facilitated this fraud," the report said. Neither company was charged.

Condon's report also slams the DOE for lax oversight.

"It is difficult to understand how the DOE could allow so much power to reside in a consultant, even an honest one, which Lanham was not. Project Connect was a billion dollar undertaking, yet no one exercised any oversight of Lanham," it read.

Indeed it is.

The DOE under Bloomberg is famous for its oversight and accountability measures for teachers, but apparently doesn't seem to give a shit about oversight and accountability of consultants or vendors.

John Liu will take action to rectify this lack of oversight and Scott Stringer has connected this disturbing lack of oversight and accountability to teacher layoffs:

City Comptroller John Liu has also directed a review of contracts with all vendors accused of wrongdoing in the report.

"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," Liu said in a statement, which called for greater oversight of city subcontracting.

Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer also slammed the DOE for spending so much on technology without sufficient oversight.

"At a time when the Department of Education is still threatening to lay off more than 4,000 teachers, it is extremely distressing to learn that the department can’t seem to keep track of its own contractors — or the money they spend," he said in a statement.

Bloomberg CANNOT get his way on these layoffs or budget cuts when he is spending so lavishly on tech contracts and the consultants themselves are STEALING millions.

Fraud At DOE Involving Outside Consultant, I.B.M. And Verizon

CityTime comes to the NYCDOE:

A former consultant for the Department of Education surrendered to federal authorities on Thursday to face charges that he stole $3.6 million in the six years he worked managing projects that were meant to provide Internet access to city schools.

Verizon and I.B.M., the largest of the vendors involved in the projects, played a role in the scheme and profited from it, according to the city’s special commissioner of investigation, Richard J. Condon.

The allegations emerged just as the department is gearing up to increase its technology spending by roughly $550 million in the next year alone, even as it contends with sharp drops in state aid that could force teacher layoffs.

According to the federal complaint, the former consultant, Willard Lanham, coaxed subcontractors into billing the department for work performed by people he had hired at rates higher than they were actually paid.

Mr. Lanham then pocketed the difference, according to the complaint, using the money to finance a lavish lifestyle that included luxury cars and a large plot of land on Long Island, where he built three high-end homes.

Mr. Condon’s office began unveiling the scheme in 2006, after receiving two anonymous complaints that Mr. Lanham was getting kickbacks from vendors.

While investigating the accusations, investigators discovered that I.B.M. had been billing the Education Department for work performed by consultants hired by Mr. Lanham without proper authorization, the complaint says.

In November 2008, the office received yet another complaint, from a senior director at the Department of Education’s Division of Instructional and Information Technology, Sheila Raskob.

In a report released on Thursday, Mr. Condon said that Ms. Raskob accused Mr. Lanham of hiring other consultants whose work was billed by Verizon through its separate contract with the department.

Mr. Lanham hired a brother as one of the consultants, according to the federal complaint. The brother was paid $40 per hour, though the invoices received by the Department of Education showed an hourly rate of $175, the complaint said.

“We are entrusted with the public’s money, and should have been more vigilant in our oversight of this project,” Schools Chancellor Dennis M. Walcott said in a statement. “Since we severed ties with this contractor and reported his criminal activity in 2008, the Department of Education has established new safeguards to ensure that no contractor has oversight over his own projects.”

Mr. Lanham is to be arraigned Thursday afternoon at Federal District Court in Manhattan.

So much to unpack here.

First, note that this scheme took place over several years and the DOE provided no meaningful oversight of the consultant's work for most of those year - he did his own oversight.

Second, note that the defrauding of the DOE was done not only by the consultant, who has now been arrested, but also by two of the largest vendors involved in the projects - I.B.M. and Verizon.

These aren't some fly by night companies that conspired to defraud the DOE of millions.

This is Verizon and I.B.M we're talking about.

Next let us note that Bloomberg plans to spend $550 million dollars on technology upgrades in the next year alone even as he lays off 4,666 teachers and lets another 1,500 jobs disappear by attrition to save the DOE $300 million.

How much of the $550 million is going to simply be stolen either by the outside consultants who apparently work for the Bloomberg administration without ANY oversight whatsoever or by the vendors who also apparently work with the city without ANY meaningful oversight whatsoever.

Bloomberg is proud to say he brought "accountability" to the DOE.

Go to the NYCDOE website and you'll see an "accountability and performance" link where visitors can see how schools, administrators and teachers are being held "accountable" by the DOE.

But apparently there is NO accountability or performance controls for any of the outside consultants or vendors who work with the city or with Bloomberg.

They steal hundreds of millions of dollars from the city and Bloomberg is going to throw them another $550 million this year for tech upgrades even as the arrests of the outside consultants start to ratchet up.

First came the CityTime arrests.

Now comes the first of the DOE arrests.

The more outside investigators dig into this business, the more crookedness they will find.

Juan Gonzalez has already pointed in the direction of another outside consultant/tech company that may be stealing money from the DOE (and thus the taxpayers.)

Gonzalez has pointed out how the outside consultants Bloomberg hires are often free from outside scrutiny because their salaries come out of the capital budget and they do not have to be revealed in public expense reports.

No one actually knows how much they're paying these guys or what it is exactly that they do.

We only know that they will not be getting laid off or taking pay cuts even as teachers do.

Given the arrest of the outside consultant in this scheme and involvement of the two vendors, I.B.M. and Verizon, in defrauding the DOE and the city, given the CityTime mess and the questions Gonzalez has raised about the Turkish contractors working for the DOE, it is time to put a FREEZE on ALL NYCDOE contracts for technology.

Bloomberg does NOT deserve the benefit of the doubt on this.

How dare he drop 6,166 teaching jobs, including laying off 4,166 teachers, when he is allowing these outside consultants and vendors to STEAL THE CITY BLIND.

Juan Gonzalez: DOE Contractors Engage In Outsourcing Scam

From Juan Gonzalez in the Daily News:

A major technology contractor for the Department of Education has been using workers in Turkey and India to service the school system's computer network - and charging taxpayers $110 an hour.

Future Technology Associates paid a Turkish company $3.4 million from 2006 to 2009 to supply 12 programmers from Turkey, Special Commissioner of Investigation Richard Condon has found. An additional three worked from India.

The Turkish firm, Krono Bilgisayar, is owned by the same two men who run Future Technology, records show.

Those execs, Tamer Sevintuna and Jon Krohe, never disclosed their ownership stake in the Turkish company, although city rules require them to list all companies they own or control.

Condon's probe has been underway for more than year.

It first came to light last month, when lawyers for Sevintuna and Krohe persuaded a Manhattan judge to quash subpoenas for the men to be questioned.

Supreme Court Justice Barbara Jaffe labeled the probe a "fishing expedition." Condon's office has appealed.

In an affidavit, Condon deputy Gerald Conroy said the probe centers on possible self-dealing and inflated billings through the use of multiple subcontractors who supplied consultants to one another.

Investigators also want to know if FTA's overseas workers, who had daily access to the school system's computer network, were properly vetted.

FTA has received nearly $100 million in DOE contracts since 2005. From the 10th floor of a DOE building on Court St. in Brooklyn, scores of FTA consultants upgrade systems that track records for vendors, school employees and students.

The firm bills up to $300,000 a year for each consultant. Probers say many of those workers were supplied to FTA by a handful of middleman subcontractors in the U.S. and abroad.

"Our contract prohibits subcontracting without DOE permission, and we never gave FTA permission," DOE spokeswoman Marge Feinberg said.

FTA lawyer Jim Walden denied his clients acted improperly.

"These companies such as Krono [the Turkish firm] are not subcontractors, but rather an employment agency [that] provided temporary consultants," Walden said in a written response to questions from the Daily News.

DOE officials who supervised FTA are well aware that some consultants worked in Turkey and India, Walden said, largely because of the shortage of qualified programmers in the U.S.

Walden accused Condon's office of "harassing" a minority-owned company - Sevintuna is a Turkish national - that provides quality service at a low cost.

Another firm FTA relied on for programmers was Mera Consulting LLC of Jacksonville, Fla., which charged $14 million over a two-year period for workers it provided.

Records show Mera was established in 2008. Its sole owner was Jon Krohe - one of FTA's two executives. Mera listed its headquarters as a mail drop in the same Jacksonville UPS store where FTA was headquartered. Mera stationery listed the same phone and fax number as FTA.

Despite the firms' close connection, Krohe did not include Mera on the list of companies he owned in financial disclosure forms filed with the city in 2009.

Probers questioned him about Mera in May 2010, Conroy's affidavit says. Krohe dissolved Mera two weeks later, then amended his financial disclosure form to include his ownership stake in Mera.

"Mera was dissolved to remove any possible suggestion that it was being used to game DOE," Walden said.

As for his clients' connection to the Turkish company, Walden said: "No FTA principal has any such ownership interest" in Krono Bilgisayar.

The company's registration records in Turkey contradict that assertion. The News obtained a copy of the legal announcement that Krono published in the June 26, 2007, Turkish Trade Registry and had it translated.

It says Sevintuna and Krohe established Krono Bilgisayar in Ankara on June 21, 2007. Sevintuna owned 60% of the shares and Krohe the other 40%.

A second notice in the Turkish Trade Registry listed Krohe and Sevintuna as the firm's owners as recently as September 2010.

Sevintuna and Krohe failed to disclose their ownership interests in Krono Bilgisayar when they filed city financial disclosure forms in 2009 and last year.

Probers say lawyers for Krono in Turkey refused to supply them time sheets to verify work done for the school system, claiming Turkish law prohibits it.

Walden told probers he could "request" the Turkish firm to cooperate, but could not force it to do so.

In other words, Sevintuna and Krohe claim they have no power to get the Turkish company they own to explain where all that money the school system paid for overseas consultants ended up.

Keep digging into this mess and let's see what more there is.

Juan Gonzalez Nails Bloomberg's Outside Consultant Contract Story

In today's Daily News, Juan Gonzalez turns both barrels onto the story that the rest of the NY media seem to ignore - fiscally "prudent" Mayor Bloomberg is handing out tons of money for outside technology contracts that have undergone little to no scrutiny by anybody:

New York City's private computer army keeps mushrooming under Mayor Bloomberg - and no one has any idea of its exact size.

What we do know is the city's overall contract spending has doubled to more than $10 billion in the last five years - and a huge part of the increase is for technology contracts.

Those computer armies can be found inside every city agency. Its foot soldiers sit at city desks.

They carry city ID cards. They spend all their time - often years - devising and maintaining huge information systems with Orwellian names like NYC WIN, ECTP, ACRIS, NICE, CitiServ.

Yet the outside contractors remain a world apart from the ordinary civil servants of our city. The techies routinely bill taxpayers for enormous salaries.

Since their salaries often come out of the city's capital budget, their names, titles and pay rates rarely appear in any expense reports the mayor makes public.

Last week, Brooklyn City Councilwoman Letitia James took a bold step. She introduced a bill that would require an annual report on the size and cost of outside contractors.

"This period of budget deficits is not the time to increase outsourcing," James said.

This column has documented for more than two years the runaway costs of such contracts. They include:
# The 63 consultants from a little-known Florida-based company, Future Technology Associates, being paid an average of $250,000 a year to develop a new financial accounting system for the Department of Education. All of this money went to a firm that had no office and operated out of a mail drop.


# The 230 consultants from defense giant SAIC who were paid an average of $400,000 a year - some of them for a decade - to design and install the infamous CityTime payroll and timekeeping system.


# The nearly 200 Hewlett-Packard consultants who spent years overseeing the $2 billion upgrade to the city's 911 system, known as ECTP. Before Hewlett-Packard was bounced from the job for repeated delays and cost overruns, most of its consultants were being paid between $300,000 and $400,000.


# The $500 million paid to Northrop Grumman to erect NYC WIN, a wireless network for first responders that has been dogged by problems. On top of that initial expense, the city pays Northrop $37 million annually just to maintain NYC WIN.


Under Northrop's contract, a low-level help desk operator is paid $185,000 annually. Meanwhile, a help desk operator directly employed by the city receives $46,000. Throw in pension and health insurance and the cost of that city employee barely reaches $70,000 - about a third of what Northrop charges.

Gee, there is an awful lot of money being handed out to outside contractors for a lot of bullshit work.

Now if these outside contractors were teachers, they'd be slated for layoffs.

But since they're private contractors, they get to keep both their jobs AND their exorbitant salaries.

Even though much of the work they're doing is either "troubled" (as in, the computer systems don't work well) or could be done cheaper by city employees.

That's how it is in Bloomberg's New York - outside private contractors are privileged, city employees demonized, scapegoated and laid off.

NY Times: Bloomberg's Teacher Layoff Predictions False

The numbers just don't make sense.

There used to be 82,000 teachers in NYC.

Now there's 75,000.

But enrollment is up.

Class sizes are maxing out.

I have 34 a class - 170 total a semester.

But Bloomberg says my school MUST lose 7 teachers to layoffs and 3-4 more through attrition.

He says 4,666 must go through layoffs, another 1,500 through attrition.

The Times looks at Bloomberg's numbers and finds them wanting:

Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg has been warning that 4,600 city teachers will receive pink slips this spring, as he pushes for legislation in Albany that would eliminate rules requiring that layoffs be based solely on seniority.

That number of layoffs will be necessary, the Bloomberg administration says, because budget cuts will eliminate about 6,100 teaching positions, and only 1,500 teachers will be lost due to attrition, the natural churn of teachers resigning, retiring, being fired or otherwise leaving their jobs.

But over the past two years, the city’s teaching force has shrunk by 2,000 to 2,500 each year through attrition, according to Department of Education statistics, suggesting that the city would need to lay off 500 to 1,000 fewer teachers than it has said.

Carol Kellermann, the president of the Citizens Budget Commission, an independent watchdog group, said the attrition estimate “struck us as low, based on historical norms.”

And the teachers’ union, which has fought dearly to keep seniority protections, called the city’s estimates part of a political game to scare people into backing an end to seniority.

“Thank God they are not standing in front of the pearly gates,” said Michael Mulgrew, the president of the union, the United Federation of Teachers. “They would all be struck by lightning.”

The questions over the layoff projections come as the city tries to both protect its newest teachers from what it says would be widespread dismissals and to squeeze as much money out of Albany as possible. It is also squabbling with the governor’s office over how much the state would cut in city education aid.

Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo’s office says its proposed budget would reduce education aid to New York City schools by $579 million. City education officials, however, say that the cut is $1.4 billion, in part because they were counting on receiving hundreds of millions of dollars more from the state in the next fiscal year than they did in the current one.

The governor took issue Thursday with the idea that any teacher layoffs would be necessary. “When they say, ‘Well, we’re going to lay off teachers, and we’re going to hurt children’ — that’s basically the threat in this discussion, right?” Mr. Cuomo said Thursday at a news conference at the Capitol.

“I don’t believe it,” he said, adding that he thought that the state’s school districts could cut more administrative costs to avert teacher layoffs. The city has not yet projected layoffs for any education employees beside teachers but says they are under consideration.

The DOE of course says, Oh no, we MUST lay off teachers, all the administrative costs we can cut have been cut.

But as Juan Gonzalez points out in today's Daily News, Bloomberg has doubled spending on outside technology consultants to $10 billion dollars over the course of his administration.

Nobody knows what these outside consultants do because they budget the process through capital spending and don't have to make public actual numbers on the consultant contracts.

Meanwhile, Bloomberg continues to threaten layoffs that don't have to be done at all.

Here are the numbers of teacher who have disappeared over the past few years:

Between October 2009 and October 2010, according to Department of Education payroll numbers, 4,551 teachers left; the previous year, 5,027 departed. But roughly 2,500 new teachers joined each year, mostly in areas where the city was mandated to maintain staffing, like special education.

The resulting net loss has been about 2,000 to 2,500 teaching positions a year. Over all, the city, with its 1.04 million students, has a total teacher roll of 74,675 now, compared with about 79,896 in September 2008, city and union officials said.

Moving from there to the city’s latest projection of just 1,500 positions to be lost by attrition requires some math and budgeting choices. The most important is a question of timing. Education officials said this week that when they make layoff projections, they count only resignations and retirements that happen between June 1 and the first day of school in September, traditionally the peak time for departures.

This leaves out hundreds of teacher departures, and the savings that would result, the union says. Last year about 600 teachers left during the school year, for example, and 900 left the previous school year.

So we have two sets of jive going on here - one, the Bloomberg administration and the DOE are manipulating the layoff numbers for their own political ends. Cuomo says no layoffs need to be done, the union points out how many teachers have already been dropped from the payroll via attrition the past few years.

Meanwhile, Gonzalez points out just how much Bloomberg is handing to outside consultants on WHO KNOWS WHAT.

It all adds up to one thing - Bloomberg is a crook, his layoff threats ought to be turned back around on him and he MUST be called to account for all the outside consultant contracts.

You want layoffs, Moneybags?

Open the books on the consultants first.

Let's see what you're spending on these boondoggles.

Bloomberg's New Teacher Project Contract

Let's be honest here - Bloomberg wants to hand the New Teacher Project a $20 million contract to hire new teachers because

a) he loves hiring new teachers and firing veteran ones

b) hiring new teachers is cheaper than continuing to pay old ones

c) the people running the New Teacher Project are part of the education deform crony system and they MUST be paid their ed deform largesse for continuing to do the GREAT EDUCATION DEFORM WORK of demonizing veteran teachers and privileging the hiring of rookies.

Kudos to John Liu for calling Bloomberg out on this:

"Twenty million dollars to recruit teachers as the DOE insists on laying off thousands of teachers seems curious, at best," Controller John Liu said.

How can there be ANY problems hiring new teachers when the DOE hasn't hired in two years and lots of people have graduated education programs and are dying for jobs.

I know, I've seen it in my school.

Many of these folks are working as subs.

They're also bartending, waiting tables, and temping.

I think the UFT characterized this issue well:

The teachers union head called the contract a waste of money.

"I think one of the deputy chancellors should go to the CUNY schools of education graduations and say they have jobs - they could fill every one," said United Federation of Teachers President Michael Mulgrew

.

Maybe the deputy chancellor should bring a couple of buses with him.

There's going to be a lot of people he brings back to Tweed in tow.

As for the work John Liu is doing, it is finally good to see ONE politician STAND UP to the Mayor of Money and call him on things when it is appropriate.

Quinn hasn't done this. Stringer hasn't done this well. Neither has De Blasio.

They're too scared of the mayor to be effective critics.

But so far, Liu has been doing his job as comptroller and serving as a counterpunch to Bloomberg's steamrolling of the system and the city.

Liu Rejects New Teacher Recruitment Contract For DOE/NTP

Gotham Schools has the story:

Comptroller John Liu rejected a $20 million contract for teacher recruitment today, calling the proposal wasteful given the city’s current fiscal climate. Yet the main reason for the comptroller’s refusal came down to paperwork.

A spokesman for the comptroller’s office said that the five-year contract with The New Teacher Project was rejected this morning because of problems with the DOE’s submission. In reviewing the contract, officials in the comptroller’s office said that the DOE did not include information on conflicts of interest or what the dates of service would be. The department can choose to resubmit the contract.

The New Teacher Project, or TNTP, is a non-profit that handles the recruitment and training of New York City’s Teaching Fellows. It also studies teacher job markets around the country

In a statement sent to reporters, Liu — a possible candidate in the next mayoral election — said he objected to the contract’s premise. The city does not need to spend money recruiting new teachers, he said.

“Twenty million dollars to recruit teachers as the DOE insists on laying off thousands of teachers seems curious at best,” Liu said.

Indeed it does.

Some might say that at worst, this is payola to Michelle Rhee's old group.

Regardless of WHAT it is, the WHY it is really is the biggest problem.

The mayor says he needs to save $300 million in the DOE budget by laying off 4,666 teachers. But he insists upon spending $20 million to recruit new teachers via the New Teacher Project, an education reform-friendly group that is loaded with lots of Klein and Rhee cronies.

Gotham Schools points out that the Panel for Educational Policy approved a similar contract for the New Teacher Project last May for $5 million even though Bloomberg was threatening layoffs then too.

It is good to see Liu reject this contract, albeit for a paperwork problem, but also call the mayor and the DOE out for the hypocrisy of looking to spend $20 million to recruit new teachers when they're in the process of laying off 4,666 teachers to ostensibly save $300 million.

More and more, John Liu is becoming the counterpoint to the corporate oligarchy that Bloomberg is running in this city.

Bloomberg Spends $52 Million For DOE Computer Consultants Even As He Lays Off Teachers To Save $300 Million

The Mayor of Money is out of control.

As each audit conducted by John Liu shows, Bloomberg overspends on outside consultants, programs and cronyism while declaring that the city is not in such great financial shapoe and must lay teachers off.

Yesterday a Liu audit revealed that Bloomberg had allowed a city contract with a construction company to balloon from $7 million to nearly $74 million dollars. Liu said the contract was not only wasteful but also fraudulent because the city had abdicated oversight of the contract to the company that it had given the contract to:

According to the audit, the agency approved 21 changes between July 2008 and January 2010 to a contract with Turner Construction Company, which was asked to provide facility management and construction management services at the Brooklyn Army Terminal, Essex Street Market building and other sites. As a result, the contract’s value jumped to $73.5 million, from $7.5 million.

The audit says the agency authorized $3.3 million in “inappropriate and questionable payments” to Turner. They include improper reimbursements for unsubstantiated expenses and unnecessary costs for loading, storing and transporting contaminated soil from the Brooklyn Army Terminal site.

Referring to an alarming “lack of involvement,” the audit says the agency demonstrated a “total reliance” on the construction company and “relinquished far too much control and supervision in reviewing and overseeing the work carried out by Turner.”

On the heels of that damaging revelation, the Daily News reports today that Bloomberg's Department of Education is ramping up spending on computer consultants even as 4,666 teachers are threatened with layoffs:

The Education Department is quietly increasing computer consultant contracts next year even as it threatens to lay off 4,600 teachers, the Daily News has learned.

High-tech consultants are slated to rake in at least $52 million next fiscal year's operating budget, up from the $28 million they were budgeted this year.

The biggest jump in the computer squad will be for those working in central administration - their budget will rise to $33 million next year from $12.3 million this year.

Just this January, the mayor agreed to cut $4 million from the much-criticized computer consultant budget as part of a deal with the City Council to keep firehouses open.

Next year's budget, though, more than restores that consultant cut.

The increases come as the city faces a $4.6 billion budget gap, prompting Mayor Bloomberg to threaten massive teacher layoffs.

Some parents say they'd rather keep the teachers than the ballooning computer contracts.

"A teacher touches a life of many students, and every child should have a class size where they can get attention," said Erica Perez, the representative from East New York, Brooklyn, to the Chancellor's Parent Advisory Council.

"These consultants have no bearing on my child's education."

The Education Department disputes that the contracts are increasing so steeply, saying that they underestimated expenses last year.

Instead of the $28 million budgeted for this fiscal year, ending in June, the department expects to spend $56.6 million.

For next year, a spokeswoman said, the $52 million figure will be more accurate.

Contracts at the agency overall will increase to $4.46 billion next year from $3.78 billion.

The biggest jumps are for contracts for private schools for special-education students and charter schools - that budget will rise to $2.1 billion from $1.6 billion.

I think what is most egregious about Bloomberg's layoff threat is that he is not even trying very hard to hide the wasteful spending on outside consultants and contracts or the horrendous amount of city tax money lost because he refuses to collect taxes on rich people.

Between the $800 million lost to the CityTime project ($80 million of which was stolen), the $900 million the city loses every year by not getting the market tax value on wealthy condo owners like A-Rod, and all the other ballooning contracts that Liu has been detailing in his audits, there is PLENTY of money to stave off layoffs.

Yet until the unions and other city pols call the mayor on this garbage, he gets to make believe like he is some fiscally prudent watchdog making sure the city finances are in order.

The opposite is true - he wastes money hand over fist, crooks are stealing money from the city in these contracts, oversight has been suspended or handed over to the companies themselves, and Bloomberg continues to ratchet up spending on contracts even as he lays off teachers, closes senior centers, and slashes spending for fire houses.

The teacher layoffs are supposed to save the city $300 million.

There is far more than $300 million in savings detailed above.

Maybe the UFT and others opposed to the mayor's agenda could, you know, get the message out?

Bloomberg Still Talking Layoffs, Trying To Make Nice With Cuomo

If calling the Cuomo LIFO proposal (a bill that undercuts teacher tenure and seniority, IMO) a scam doesn't work, then you try and make nice:

"I didn't hear the governor today, but I can tell you I've worked with the governor for a long time. I've known him for a long time. We've worked very well for the last couple of months. We both have exactly the same interest, of getting the best teachers that we can in front of the classroom. Both of us have to deal with tough budgets. We're going to have to reduce expenses at the state level and the city level, and we're going to have to make sure we provide the best services we possibly can with less money. I'm committed to making sure there is the best teacher that we can possibly get in front of every student, and we will do that. Sadly, we are going to have to lay off some teachers. We just don't have the money. Every agency has taken a cut. The teachers' cut is from the last Program to Eliminate the Gap. We just didn't want to do that in the middle of the school year.

"So this is really just catching up. We still have a $600 million budget deficit to deal with, and we are going to have layoffs, and my hope is that we can find a ways, with the governor's help and the legislators' help, to make sure that we don't use a system of deciding who goes that is irrelevant to the kids. The only thing that is relevant is who can do the best job in front of the class, who can teach the teachers (sic) the most. And I know the governor has that in his heart as well."

Still pushing layoffs, still pushing the end to LIFO.

Never mind that John Liu's audits show EXACTLY where Bloomberg can find the money to save the layoffs.

The UFT ought to be all over this audit stuff from Liu.

Why aren't they?

As for the layoff, Cuomo STILL says Bloomberg doesn't need to do layoffs.

Maybe he's seen John Liu's audits too?

WTF? FILE: Bloomberg: "The Budget Is Good News"

From the WTF? file:

Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, in unveiling his budget plan on Thursday, summed up New York City’s financial health with a phrase scarcely heard in the halls of government these days: “It’s good news.”

While other cities and states grapple with calamitous balance sheets and mass layoffs, Mr. Bloomberg proposed a $65.9 billion spending plan for the next fiscal year, an increase of $2.5 billion, or four percent, over the current budget.

And even as other governments have fallen into deep financial holes, the city’s forecast for tax revenues has increased by $2 billion since November, making the draconian cuts many city workers had feared unnecessary.

New York City stands on far surer financial footing than most major cities — at least for the moment — propped up by a financial industry that has come back roaring from the depths of the recession. Revenue from business taxes is expected to grow by 19 percent this year over the previous year.

Mr. Bloomberg, taking to the lectern to explain his budget, gloated as he spoke about the city’s record number of tourists, its better-than-average unemployment rate and its recovering commercial real estate market.

“We are in a much stronger position than most because we have planned ahead,” he said. “I’ve always been optimistic about New York.”

If everything in NYC is so peachy clean and the city is raking in an additional $2 billion in tax revenues, why is Bloomberg reducing the teaching force by 6,166 teachers (1,50o through attrition, 4,666 through layoffs)?

Might it be because he wants to, not because he, you know, has to?

Let's face it - he can ALWAYS avoid layoffs and class size increases.

All he would have to do is shut down some of the no-bid contracting the NYCDOE does with all those outside consultants, ratchet down the testing apparatus for a couple of years and cancel the CityTime project and other Bloombergian giveaways to his corporate cronies.

But he doesn't do any of that because he doesn't want to.

Instead he WANTS to lay teachers off because he knows he can use this "crisis" to gut seniority, tenure and the teachers union.

It's a CHOICE he is making.

Mulgrew and Company, arrogant insulated elites they may be, but even they have to know if they give on this stuff, it's GAME OVER for the UFT.

Seriously, what rationale is there for the existence of the UFT if seniority and tenure have been gutted?

So we have a SHOWDOWN here in NYC, not quite like the one transpiring in Wisconsin, but make no mistake, the stakes are just as high.

Bloomberg knows that he has the moneyed elite to back him on this and flood the airwaves, the tabloid covers and the TV stations with anti-union/anti-teacher garbage.

The anti-union/anti-teacher side is well-funded, well-connected, and well-heeled (and in Cathie Black's case well-sauced too.)

The UFT has morons like this working for them.

It doesn't seem like much of a fight, does it?

And yet, as I say, the stakes couldn't be higher.

The UFT cannot afford to "collaborate" or "concede" anything here - not layoffs, not furloughs, not pension changes, not ATR concessions.

Bloomberg has all the money he needs to run the system, without layoffs.

Cuomo said as much last week.

The city itself is saying that by acknowledging an additional $2 billion in revenue.

Hell, Bloomberg says the city is in great f---ing shape.

If all that is true, tell us, Moneybags, why the need for layoffs?

Seriously, wtf?

Payroll Admin Director Gave Rubber Stamp To CityTime Project

And Bloomberg gave a rubberstamp to the Payroll Administration Director:

The Bloomberg administration official responsible for overseeing a huge, troubled payroll and timekeeping project for New York City employees that is the focus of an $80 million federal corruption case said on Thursday that he was resigning.

In a one-sentence letter to the board that oversees his agency, the official, Joel Bondy, said he was leaving as executive director of the Office of Payroll Administration effective Dec. 31. Last week, Mr. Bondy, who has not been charged, was suspended without pay. His biography was removed from the agency’s Web site earlier this week.

His departure comes as newly available documents reveal that he gave glowing evaluations for the work done by the quality assurance monitor for the project, known as CityTime, during a period when, prosecutors say, consultants for the firm were bilking the city for their own enrichment.

Last January, Mr. Bondy took stock of how the effort to overhaul the city’s payroll system was going. The company charged with quality assurance, Spherion, was due to be evaluated on an $18.6 million contract.

How Spherion’s performance was rated by Mr. Bondy had potential implications for the company’s ability to stay on the job and to win future city work.

Mr. Bondy, records show, was deeply impressed with the company’s work. According to two years of evaluations, for the periods from February 2008 through 2009, made available through a state Freedom of Information Law request, he gave the firm an overall rating of excellent, the highest possible level, for its work on CityTime.

And for each of the three areas covered in the evaluations, including fiscal administration and accountability, Mr. Bondy wrote the same seven-word comment in praise of Spherion: “The contractor’s work has consistently exceeded expectations.”

Criminal charges by prosecutors, though, now suggest that Mr. Bondy’s work was, at minimum, deeply flawed. During the years that were the focus of his appraisal, two consultants for Spherion, and two subcontractors hired by the company, are accused of taking part in the $80 million fraud, according to a criminal complaint filed last week in Federal District Court in Manhattan.

Investigators said that from 2005 through this December, Mark Mazer, Spherion’s lead quality assurance consultant on CityTime, awarded lucrative contracts to people he knew who then kicked back about $25 million to him. Prosecutors said these individuals also billed for work that was never performed and hid the money in shell companies that were in the names of Mr. Mazer’s mother and wife.

The case has raised questions about Mr. Bondy’s assessments: Was he duped, was he simply not qualified, or was he knowingly misleading the city? Mr. Bondy did not return calls or reply to e-mails seeking comment.

“Agencies rely on these performance evaluations to award billions of dollars in city contracts, and this case reveals a greater vulnerability in the process,” said Sharon Lee, a spokeswoman for City Comptroller John C. Liu.

The Times reports that the previous OPA director had sternly warned about the problems with SAIC, Spherion and CityTime:

In a February 2003 letter to SAIC, Mr. Bondy’s predecessor at the payroll office, Richard R. Valcich, accused the company, in McLean, Va., of repeatedly delaying the project to get paid more, failing to adhere to basic industry standards and rewriting contracts on its own.

But it appears that Mr. Bondy never took the necessary action to control the problems with CityTime, whose cost has swelled to more than $600 million.

And at the time that he was doing Spherion’s two performance evaluations — both signed on Jan. 26, 2010 — the fraud alleged to have been committed by the consultants was in full swing.

Mr. Bondy rated Spherion excellent in the category of timeliness of performance, and good in the area of fiscal administration and accountability.

Questions in that category included: did the vendor submit “accurate, complete and timely payment requisitions,” and did it “meet its budgetary goals, exercising reasonable efforts to contain costs?”

Mr. Bondy worked for Spherion on the CityTime project before Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg selected him to run the payroll office. Mr. Bondy has also had ties to Mr. Mazer, whose performance he was evaluating.

Such great oversight in the Bloomberg administration.

Bloomberg hires a guy who used to work for a crooked company to oversee that crooked companies crooked contracts.

How's that for accountability from the Mayor of Accountability?

Bloomberg needs to answer DIRECTLY, not through a spokesman, but DIRECTLY, why it is he hired Joel Bondy to be OPA Director.

You have to wonder who got pieced off in this deal and just how deep the corruption in the Bloomberg consulting contract deals goes.

Judging by the CityTime scandal, pretty deep.

CityTime Scandal Widens To DOE

There is a NYCDOE connection the CityTime payroll project scandal that saw six people arrested, four of whom were on the city payroll as consultants, for stealing $80 million dollars from the city.

The Daily News has the story:

On Wednesday, prosecutors charged consultants Mark Mazer, Scott Berger and four others with running a scheme to rip off millions in kickbacks and overcharges on CityTime, which was supposed to computerize paper payroll records to eliminate fraud and waste.

Mazer had free rein under Bondy, the feds claim, and used it to hire companies run by conspirators Dimitry Aronshtein and Victor Natanzon - who billed the city $76 million and kicked back one-third to Mazer.

Mazer's lawyer, Gerald Shargel, said his client denies wrongdoing. "He's a talented and hardworking computer programmer who enjoys a very close and decent family life," Shargel said.

...

The Department of Education also launched a probe into a Woodside, Queens, preschool owned by Mazer's wife, Svetlana, who was charged with money laundering.

The agency has paid ABC Preschool to provide prekindergarten classes since 2005. The city has paid ABC $237,126 since Jan. 1.

Svetlana Mazer declined to comment as parents brought children to the preschool.

You can be sure that the DOE is awash in scandal as well.

There have been many no-bid contracts handed out, lots of money exchanging hands down there at Tweed, and as we learned yesterday, Chancellor Klein was not exactly the brightest manager of the agency.

How much would you like to bet that some of the "consultants" hired by Tweed were stealing money from the city just the way the consultants hired by Director of Payroll Administration Joel Bondy were stealing money from the city as part of the CityTime project?

Given the blatant stealing that was going on as part of the CityTime project, and given that Bloomberg did NOTHING about it despite critics like John Liu and Leticia James telling him he ought to be doing something about it, I think ALL city consulting business needs to be looked at closely so we can see just how Bloomberg is spending the taxpayer dime

This especially needs to be done BEFORE the Mayor of Accountability announces layoffs.

The $80 million dollars stolen by the CityTime crooks right under Bloomberg's nose would keep a lot of teachers in classrooms, wouldn't it?

Where's The Accountability On This No-Bid Contract?

I guess only teachers and schools need to be held accountable?

An MTA board will be asked next week to hire the company behind CityTime, a city payroll and timekeeping project that's been plagued with delays and a ballooning budget.

A Metropolitan Transportation Authority committee will vote Monday on a staff-recommended $118 million contract for a new radio communications system from Science Applications International Corp, the main contractor for CityTime.

Originally, CityTime was estimated to cost $63 million, but costs have grown more than tenfold over a decade or so.

Costs skyrocketed ten times what you initially told us the project would cost?

Fantastic!

Let's hire you for other stuff!

Hell, the only difference between $63 million and $630 million is a zero, give or take.

Can't wait to see what the $118 million dollar contract the MTA hands these crooks costs when all is said and done.

Juan Gonzalez has more on this story here.

I wonder who at City Time knows who at City Hall?

It's For The Good Of The Kids

The salary and benefit cuts, I mean:

BRIDGEWATER -- The 1,360-member Bridgewater Raritan Education Association voted to approve $1.4 million in concessions today, a move that will save 16-full time teaching positions and help soften the blow created by millions of dollars in state-aid cuts to the Bridgewater-Raritan School District.

The BREA did not specify how the give-backs will affect teachers' salaries for the coming school year, but said the teachers and maintenance union agreed to waive $403,000 for tuition reimbursement. Teachers will also pay 1.5 percent of their salaries toward the cost of health benefits next year.

BREA President Steve Beatty said the move was necessary to preserve the quality of education in the district, but blasted Gov. Chris Christie for criticizing the union last week when it appeared contract talks had stalled.

“Our members care about our students and our community,” said Beatty. “It’s unfortunate that the governor’s cuts are requiring the people who work in public schools to make even more concessions than they already have in order to preserve as best we can our excellent public schools.”

“We reject the governor’s attempts to deflect blame for his devastating cuts onto our members,” said Beatty. “He could restore districts' funding just by reinstating the tax on millionaires and dedicating those funds to our public schools.”

Governor Christie can't restore the millionaire's tax - that would hurt the kids, specifically the kids of millionaires as well their wealthy parents.

But teachers have to take salary and benefit cuts or be scapegoated as "hurting the kids..."

This story is from Jersey, but it's coming to a school near you in New York State too once the fall-out from Paterson's budget cuts and failure to pay the districts their state aid hits home.

You can be sure UFT members will be asked to pay for health benefits, take salary cuts or 0% "raises," okay the firing of the ATR's and make other concessions to the city and the state or be scapegoated as selfish, mean-spirited grinches who are "hurting the kids."

You'll note that all of this is happening to schools and school staffs even as Bloomberg hands out $700 million dollar no-bid contracts to crooks and bonuses to city managers while the City Council staff get 4% raises.

Not to mention the billion dollar bonuses Wall Street is handing out with either TARP money or money made from the 0% interest loans Uncle Ben Bernanke and President Accountability have made available through the Federal Reserve ATM machine for Too Big To Fail Institutions like Goldman and Chase.

But we have to give out all these bonuses and no-bid contracts and salary increases to politicians and their staffs while cutting school budgets, cutting school staff, and forcing the ones still around take salary and benefit cuts.

Otherwise the terrorists win. Or something like that.

And most importantly, it's for the good of the kids.

At Least Somebody's Starting To Look Into Bloomberg's No'Bid Contract Boondoggles

Juan Gonzalez reports that city controller John Liu plans has nixed a no-bid contract Bloomberg handed to Republican party cronies of his for a city payroll system:

City Controller John Liu is refusing to approve a new $8 million contract the Bloomberg administration has awarded for the city's controversial payroll and timekeeping system.

Liu wants to know now why the computerized system known as CityTime has ballooned to more than 10 times its original price tag.

When development of CityTime began in 1998, officials promised it would use new-age hand scanners and other technology to eliminate abuse of employee timecards by thousands of workers.

The system has instead turned into an uncontrolled gravy train for high-paid consultants and a boondoggle for taxpayers.

CityTime "has a long history of extraordinary increases, rising from $68 million to $722 million over 10 years," Liu's director of contract administration, John Goddard, wrote on Feb. 9 in notifying Bloomberg aides of his rejection of the new contract for Spherion Inc.

Goddard noted that since 2001, Spherion has been in charge of monitoring all contractor performance on CityTime and was supposed to be controlling costs.

For that work, the city has shelled out $51 million to Spherion. Meanwhile, the project's main contractor, defense giant SAIC, has received $670 million.

The News reported in December that several top Spherion consultants, among them an ex-business partner of the city's payroll office chief, Joel Bondy, have each earned more than $400,000 a year to oversee CityTime. More than a dozen Spherion consultants averaged $300,000 each in 2009.

Another CityTime consultant from SAIC, former Mayor Rudy Giuliani's technology chief Sal Salamone, made millions of dollars as a full-time computer industry lobbyist before city agencies while at the same time collecting $250,000 annually for his work on the time-keeping project.

Gonzelez says until now, there has been no outside audit of the project.

Just the way Bloomberg likes it.

He brings the data, you trust him with it.

And the public gets screwed.

Liu needs to keep looking into Bloomberg's no-bid contracts and follow who is on the receiving end of his largesse.

Third terms are notoriously scandal-plagued here in NYC.

If Liu and others dig into the no-bid contracts Bloomberg has handed out the last 8 years and continues to try and hand out now, they're going to have plenty of scandal material.

Joel Klein: Mobbed Up? So What!!!

The NY Daily News reported yesterday that Chancellor Joel Klein plans to award a $206 million dollar contract to a school bus company run by a Mafia associate who turned Sammy the Bull on his mob associates and admitted that he had been involved in "multiple crimes" including bribing city safety inspectors and city officials in charge of handing out bus routes.

Klein has decided to give Logan Bus Company, which currently has 25% of city bus routes, an extension to its current contract without seeking bids from other companies despite owner Michael Tornabe admitting to organized crime activity.

The Education Department defended the no-bid contract with the mobbed up company by saying it is "still the best deal for the city."

The inspectors who took the bribes from several bus companies, including Logan Bus Company, were convicted of corruption charges and sentenced to prison.

But the company that offered the bribes?

They've been rewarded with a $206 million dollar contract.

Makes you wonder who the Logan Bus Company is still bribing in the Education Department.