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County to help schools in collective buying
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Convinced actual merging of school districts is a political nonstarter in Suffolk, County Executive Steve Levy Monday proposed his most sweeping plan for school service consolidation to date.
Under Levy, the county has already sought to cut local education costs by opening its fueling contract and prescription drug plan to inclusion by school districts. At a summit of school officials in Hauppauge county executive offices Monday, Levy proposed including several or all of the county's 69 districts in collective contracts for printing, transportation, security and/or cafeteria services.
Prohibited by state law from issuing a request for proposals — the typical municipal procedure to collect bids from the private sector for provision of goods or services of significant value — on behalf of the districts, Levy said, the county instead plans to release an RFEI, request for expressions of interest, from private firms for the four services in October. He is seeking both districts' help to examine and refine the county officials' description of the contracts sought, and for schools to sign on to the RFEI.
Participating in the RFEI does not require a commitment to enter whatever collective contract is selected; as of the Monday summit, 45 districts had joined the effort. "The more districts we can get together, the greater the discount we will get," Levy said.
The onus of explaining how the large-scale services will be provided, and how much savings individual districts will reap, is placed on the businesses responding to the RFEI, according to Levy. "Let them tell us what they can do from an efficiency standpoint," he said. Whether service providers will be able to offer significant savings remains to be seen, Levy added, "but it might be a pretty penny — that's certainly worth considering."
A number of school officials in attendance greeted Levy's plan with cautious optimism, expressing admiration for the idea but reserving judgement until the specific benefits for their districts could be ascertained.
Harborfields Superintendent Frank Carasiti asked whether facility maintenance services, like contracts with plumbers and electricians, could also be sought in the RFEI. "If there's any way they could be included, this might be a commendable service," he said.
Other officials said they would like to see collective contracts for construction and health insurance. Commack Superintendent James Feltman expressed his interests in the former, as well as potentially joining the county's fueling contract. Thus far only Hauppauge and William Floyd districts have made use of the county's wholesale-cost fuel.
Commack already receives diesel at a low price off a state contract, but the district may be able to further cut costs by using county fueling stations instead of maintaining its own, Feltman said. If Commack buses could fuel at Suffolk stations without leaving the district — which Levy said Monday was possible — "that would be helpful," Feltman said.
A collective health contract could offer significant savings to Kings Park, which currently negotiates its own rates with state employee insurer Empire, said Superintendent Sue Agruso. The county already saves roughly $1 million due to expanding its prescription drug program, EPIC, to private residents, who themselves cut 20 to 50 percent off medicine costs in the deal, Levy said; Monday he encouraged districts to join EPIC as well. Even if that's the only way in which Kings Park consolidates its health care costs, "that would be a great benefit to our staff," Agruso said.
Wendell Chu, president of the Suffolk County School Superintendent's Association and East Islip schools chief, cautioned that the RFEI not hurt the Island economy by excluding smaller local businesses who have traditionally provided school services. "We don't want to make it so big and so expandable that only companies in Washington State can bid on Suffolk County contracts for school districts," he said.
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