A university-related economics center suggests more transparency in Arkansas school transactions. | Adobe Stock
A university-related economics center suggests more transparency in Arkansas school transactions. | Adobe Stock
Arkansas Center for Research in Economics Policy Analysts Joyce Ajayi and Mavuto Kalulu have made procurement transparency recommendations through a report published June 8.
In the report, procurement was referred to as the goods and services that stem from third parties that contract for work or services to be completed or equipment, materials or supplies to be available for sale to school districts.
The Arkansas Center for Research in Economics is part of Central Arkansas University.
There is currently no law in place for the Arkansas school districts to make bids, bidders, bid winners, bid outcomes and online bid amounts available to the public. Ajayi and Kalulu state in the report that this leaves procurement in a state to be easily corrupted due to "the volume of contracts, the money involved, and the opportunities for bribery."
Only seven out of 75 counties were given the highest administrative transparency rating in the report and 63 counties received the lowest possible administrative transparency rating.
Ramification examples were given in the report as a direct result of poor procurement oversight. In 2017, Brandi Freeman of Westside School District stole $178,391 via unauthorized and/or undocumented payments for personal use, payments to personal vendor accounts, reimbursements for fictitious purchases and payments to a fictitious vendor. The report states Freeman pleaded guilty and was sentenced to two years in prison.
The report suggests one solution to this problem is to legally require school districts and counties to publish certain information online including current requests for proposals (RFPs), archived RFPs, current bidders, archived bidders, current bid amounts or, at a minimum, the range of the bid amounts, It also suggests publicizing archived bid amounts, or at least the range of the bid amounts, current bid winners, archived bid winners, current winning bid amounts, and archived winning bid amounts.
The Office for Education Policy reports that between 2015 and 2019, Arkansas school districts spent more than $5 billion.
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