Update:

D.C. Public Schools says it plans to get food service contracts to the D.C. Council by Nov. 20, offering a more specific timeline for a process that has been delayed several months. The Council is expecting to approve new contracts by Dec. 1.

The school district gave the timeline at a Wednesday hearing, following a Sept. 6 hearing where Chairman Phil Mendelson demanded DCPS return with more specific dates. Currently, the Office of the Attorney General is in the process of reviewing the contracts to make sure they comply with D.C. law, or are “legally sufficient.”

DCPS has attributed its delay in getting contracts to the council to that stage of the process. DCPS says OAG should approve the contracts by Oct. 31. Asked whether that deadline is “reasonable and achievable,” Patrick Ashley, chief of fiscal strategy for DCPS, said he believes so.

“I think we all want to bring this to a closure,” Ashley said.

Original:

At a council hearing Wednesday, Chairman Phil Mendelson grilled DCPS officials over ongoing delays in submitting new food service contracts to the council for review, and pushed for a more specific timeline for getting the contracts properly submitted.

The hearing was the latest in months of back-and-forth between the council and DCPS over contracting issues following a February hearing where the council discovered that DCPS had awarded dozens of contracts without getting council approval, including food service contracts with vendors SodexoMagic and DC Central Kitchen.

The food service contracts were among 36 total contracts worth $270 million dating back as early as 2020 – most of them not related to food service – that DCPS had failed to submit properly to the D.C. Council.

DCPS was given retroactive approval for those contracts and is now seeking approval for new contracts, potentially with new vendors. They were originally scheduled to meet with the council on Aug. 22, but missed an Aug. 17 deadline to get contracts to the council. DCPS also failed to meet an earlier deadline of June 30 to submit the new contracts.

Mendelson said he had delayed the hearing hoping that DCPS would have this year’s food service contracts ready, though by late August it became clear DCPS was going to miss the deadline again.

Patrick Ashley, chief of fiscal strategy for DCPS, told the council at the hearing that the school district is hoping to delay the start of the new contracts until Jan. 1, 2024, and get council approval by early December.

That new start date, Ashley said, would ensure an orderly transition to any new vendors and uninterrupted meal services for students. In the meantime, schools are continuing to serve meals under emergency contracts with incumbent vendors SodexoMagic and DC Central Kitchen. Those contracts were set to expire Sept. 30, but DCPS is seeking to extend them through the end of the calendar year.

Before the new contracts start in 2024, DCPS has to go through multiple steps. That includes ensuring documents comply with the law through a review by the Office of the Attorney General, as well as soliciting information from and evaluating potential food service vendors before awarding contracts to chosen vendors.

DCPS’ food service contracts have not been competitively bid since 2016, when it awarded contracts to incumbent vendors SodexoMagic and DC Central Kitchen. DCPS had originally planned to competitively rebid the contracts and submit them to the Council for approval by July 2023.

Ashley said the school district is aiming to solicit information from potential vendors by “early September.”

“We’re in early September,” Mendelson said. “By what date?”

DCPS says it’s waiting for the Office of the Attorney General (OAG) to review the contracts and has attributed the delay in getting them to the council to that process. Mendelson has called that a “vague explanation.”

“The foregoing reflects a disorganized and unplanned procurement exacerbated by false promises. More importantly, it denies any meaningful opportunity for council and parent reaction to the proposed food service contracts,” Mendelson said at the hearing.“I’ve asked for milestones every step. Specific dates. Otherwise, how can we trust DCPS?”

Ashley said it was difficult to determine specific dates at this time, highlighting that the documents were with OAG.

“I want to be pleasant here, but there can be dates,” Mendelson said. “A deadline is a date. It’s not early November or late November or mid-November…without those dates, there is no discipline.”

Mendelson eventually recessed the hearing again to Sept. 13, requesting that DCPS officials come back with a specific timeline.

Mendelson has said the contracting issues speak to a ‘larger procurement issue’ within DCPS.

“It’s pretty clear that their procurement process over the last several years has been a disaster,” he told DCist/WAMU. He added that a recent memo from the Inspector General suggested that the contracting delays might “jeopardize” a comprehensive annual audit due next February.

Mendelson said it’s “difficult to prevent incompetence,” but noted a bill he introduced in May that would take procurement authority away from DCPS and assign it to the city’s Office of Contracting and Procurement.