Chicago public school bureaucrats skirted competitive bidding rules to buy 30 cappuccino/espresso machines for $67,000, with most of the machines going unused because the schools they were ordered for had not asked for them, according to a report by the CPS Office of Inspector General.
That was just one example of questionable CPS actions detailed in the inspector general’s 2008 annual report. Others included high school staffers changing grades to pump up transcripts of student athletes and workers at a restricted-enrollment grade school falsifying addresses to get relatives admitted.
In the case of the cappuccino machines, central office administrators split the order among 21 vocational schools to avoid competitive bidding required for purchases over $10,000. As a result CPS paid about $12,000 too much, according to Inspector General James Sullivan. “We were able to find the same machines cheaper online,” he said.
“We also look at it as a waste of money because the schools didn’t even know they were getting the equipment, schools didn’t know how to use the machines and weren’t prepared to implement them into the curriculum,” Sullivan said.
Does that include baristas? If so, then it’s a good deal.
To bad there is no fat to cut in gov’t budgets.
According to Mr. Confusion that is.
You’re wrong PaddyO. Obama will go line by line through the budget and get rid of things like this. Watch him veto Congress’ stimulus package because of all the pork.
He’s already started. Just look at this story. Well the person in charge of Chicago schools is no longer in that job. Obama had him removed.
Are these the same intercity Chicago schools that can’t afford textbooks? If so, then whoever bought these capuccino machines should be shot.
Now, I know how the US spends the most per capita on education than any other country and gets such poor results…
As a teacher I know that it is this kind of crap that gives public schools a bad image. The way I see it, this is another thing schools are being asked to “teach” children that should be taught elsewhere. If you want to learn to be a barista, get a job at Starbucks.
Chicago has a long history of public corruption. Devising new schemes to rob the taxpayer is tiring work so IMO the purchase of these Cappuccino machines is justified.
Probably purchased for the cooking programs at the separate CPS vocational schools. And just like anything you can get online cheaper, you get a commensurate support system if the units fail.
disclaimer…I work for a company that sells to schools in this manner. Going to bid on something like this means the schools end up with shitty equipment that might meet the spec, but that’s no way to be purchasing a non-commodity. BTDT, seen the schools throw away money buying shit that can’t be used in a classroom, but was “cheaper.”
Culinary arts…sorry couldn’t think of the name of the programs that would use these. They teach kids how to be caterers, and cook for large groups. Among other related things.
# 7 Olo Baggins of Bywater said, “Probably purchased for the cooking programs at the separate CPS vocational schools.”
“with most of the machines going unused because the schools they were ordered for had not asked for them”
Shoots that theory dead…
A school can’t figure out how to use an espresso machine? Can’t read? Maybe so.
So, where did these machines wind up?
This site is more like The Enquirer, it’s become so full of hype. They bought machines for about $2k each. The machines are commercial grade so they last. The one shown above is brass, it’s crem de la crem, elite of the elite, for the rich and famous hotels like the Hyatt, and costs over $50K.
That is NOT what the school bought.
The savings for the teachers for each one of the boring stainless steel coffee makers that they actually purchased, over 20 years, comes out to about 1/2 a million dollars when you compare what they would have had to spend buying their fancy espressos and cappuccinos at Starsucks or similar coffee house.
Interesting that the low-brow, scandal-mongering Sun-Times doesn’t do any investigation of the story. That’s about par for the course.
On the face of it, it looks absurd to buy $67K worth of espresso machines (unless it was for the culinary arts program, and there was a communications SNAFU).
Who ordered them? Why did they order them? If money was going into somebody’s pocket, that I could understand. If they were beaurocrats having their shitters redecorated to the tune of $250,000.00, that I could understand.
But buying 30 machines at $2500 a pop? A they say on the lawyer TV shows, cui bono?
There’s more to this story than this newspaper article is revealing. There seems about as much motivation for this coffee-machine purchase as there would be for some nefarious school department official to buy $67,000 worth of dirt and dump it behind the school.
All links on The Google lead back to this Sun-Times story, so it appears that nobody did any looking into the siituation beyond what reporter Art Golab did, which wasn’t much.
Oh well, at least it gives the wingnuts the opportunity to bash Obama, and the gummint in general.
Mister Mustard’s logic: another one of his finer moments as he tries to cover up the $67,000 school fiasco by blaming it on shoddy reporting. The bureaucratic and unionized educational system couldn’t possibly be corrupt. The problem has to be somewhere else.
and for $20,000 I could have built something from SCRATCH, that would have done just as good.
#12 Drama Queen Mustard
What a surprise, Mustard standing up for government corruption and those who perpetrate it.
Still, did I mention how wonderful it is to see the Drama Queen continue his fall into the depths of insanity. Definitely a short trip getting shorter.
If the schools taught the barista arts as part of vocational learning, that would be a good thing. Better than “bowling” or ballroom dancing.
#15 – ‘tempt
Hey ‘temptie! Good to see you again, buddy! I though the same you felt over being busted on the Franken “scandal” might make you reticent and unwilling to show your face on dvorak dot org slash blog again. That must have been darned embarrassing for you!
As to your offering in this thread…. if you actually read what I wrote, you would know that I’m not “defending” anything; corrupt, honest, or in-between.
I’m simply pointing out that there’s obviously more to this story that Art the Sun-Times’ reporter is reporting, and I’d be interested to know what that is, and why it’s not being reported.
Laziness? Incompetence? Or would reporting the full story make it less tabloid-friendly, and wouldn’t sell as many copies to those salt-of-the-earth folks who read the Sun Times??
Praise be to Mouse-turd, Leader of the Church of the Holly Obamanation…
Defender of the liberal left…
Champion of the Demo-crap’s corruption…
Keeper of the faith-less…
Spewer of crapola…
The weaping pustule on the backside of the Holly Obamanation…
Never try to confuse Mouse-turd with the facts, he’s got his mind made up…
If he would go back a read his old posts, he’d find he’s now arguing in defense of things he used to argue against.
A closed mind is such a waste, someday maybe Mouse-turd will wake-up and if we’re lucky grow-up too…
#17 Drama Queen Mustard
>>I’m simply pointing out that there’s obviously more to this story
Since when do you care about the full story? Judging from the many times you condemn first then who cares about the facts it’s easy to conclude that fairness is simply not in your nature.
What “facts” are being ignored?
What “fuller story” is being ignored when Mustard is criticizing the limited post for leaving things out.
Silly poop heads.
Now this is what all public schools should be doing, scrap teaching math, science, english and history and lets teach the kids how to make a skinny, caramel, double shot with whip creme espresso… This country is entering the death throws thanks to the liberals that have hijacked the public education system in the US. You can always count of any idea, solution, answer or approach to any problem or issue from a liberal to be funny as hell though….now all you kids get back to steaming that milk…
#19 – ‘tempt
>>it’s easy to conclude that fairness is
>>simply not in your nature.
Oh! You hurt me to the quick! I think I’m being more than fair, allowing you to redeem yourself for claiming that “some place” in Minnesota had 9,724 logged votes vs. only 9578 registered voters. I’d think after all the opportunities I gave to to rectify that “mistake”, you would be singing my praises!
Yet here you are! Badgering me! At least FuckUp had the decency to keep a low profile after his “PROTEIN CELLS” debacle. Yet you, little man, are back bold as brass, criticizing me for being unfair.
I weep (note the spelling of “weep”, BiteOnThis, as your inchoherent rant in message #18 showed your lower-than-average verbal skills) at the injustice of it.
#13 – Jay Benson II
>>another one of his finer moments as he tries
>>to cover up the $67,000 school fiasco
Cover up? Bite your tongue, Jay Junior! I simply want a full reporting of the situation.
When someone does something that seems to have absolutely not financial (or any other) benefit to the doer, I think it’s incumbent upon those reporting the story to provide a full accounting of the situation.
It’s very easy to guffaw about the “fuckin’ Chicago beaurocrats” pissing away taxpayer money, and how this must somehow reflect negatively on President-Elect Obama. And I’m sure it sells a lot of papers to the readers of the Chicago Sun-Times. What’s not so easy is to provide the full background of the expenditure; that would require investigative skills and some intelligence.
I guess that’s why Art works for the Sun-Times instead of the Tribune.
Does anyone believe for a minute that the Chicago public school system will ever improve as long as you have fools (and this issue was not the result of only one or two people, everyone knows that purchasing in any large organization involves many hands) that believe that spending 62K on espresso machines is a prudent expenditure of scarce dollars in such a needy school system?
Now when the graduates of the Chicago Public School System go in to rob the local coffee shop they will have a better understanding of how long it will take the barista to make that special coffee drink and thus better calculate how long it will take them to get to the register to make the demand for cash…you see, Mr Mustard is right….maybe we don’t know the entire story and potential benefits…
#23 Drama Queen Mustard
>>Yet here you are! Badgering me!
You play the victim well. You remind me of a playground bully who has at one time or another badgered and ridiculed most everyone on this site.
It’s time you get a little of what you give.
#25 – Algo
>>blah blah blah. blah. blah blah.
Why are ignorant Chicago-bashers such as yourself so insistent that the full story not be revealed?
Mustard just looks like the average keyboard tard… Easy enough to just ignore these tards….He’s really nothing special at least from these post…Just one of a thousand liberal trolls that preach the “progressive” mein kampf for eveything… He will post some blathering response to this but I will only ignore him…pretty soon he will grow weary from his rants and move on…
#26–Contempt for the truth: you just admitted your intent was to badger and ridicule Mustard.
I guess one difference would be that YOU deserve the drubbing Mustard gives by way of your missing education WHEREAS no one, including Mustard can actually be badgered by one as transparently inept as yourself.
Just put up or shut up and stop yapping with your pants down around your ankles: give us the name of the country wherein Franken stole votes. Until such time, STFU.
It’s the Mustard – Bobbo show again. They are ruining this website by bogarting the comments. Hey! Csn you bloviators limit it to ONE comment perhaps? Or do you need to spread your egos all over the place like dripping molasses? Why not start your own blog instead of taking this one over?