ABC7 $10 million spent by Taylor without BOE approval

[Anonymous]

When 7News searched JP Morgan Chase on the Board of Education website, we found the last procurement approval for that company appears to have come in 2014, but the amount is listed as $0.

https://wjla.com/news/local/montgomery-county-inspector-general-report-million-without-broad-approval-procurement-review-spending-education-vendor-payments-accountability-jp-morgan-chase-policy-violations-maryland-transparency-oversight

[Anonymous]

I find it so awful how they keep blaming the previous administration for everything. Not a good look at all. The report cites payments made in FY25 during which Thomas Taylor was superintendent.

[Anonymous]

Not opening link. Can someone summarize? Or paste below. What was it spent on??

[Anonymous]

So the $10 million is for expense card dispersed throughout the system and used by a variety of MCPS staff.

I presume the board authorized MCPS to have personal expense cards like this? I don't know. But it does beg the question of what controls MCPS has in place to manage the expenses that are charged to these individual cards.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:So the $10 million is for expense card dispersed throughout the system and used by a variety of MCPS staff.

I presume the board authorized MCPS to have personal expense cards like this? I don't know. But it does beg the question of what controls MCPS has in place to manage the expenses that are charged to these individual cards.

From the article the boe hasn’t voted on this spending since 2014.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So the $10 million is for expense card dispersed throughout the system and used by a variety of MCPS staff.

I presume the board authorized MCPS to have personal expense cards like this? I don't know. But it does beg the question of what controls MCPS has in place to manage the expenses that are charged to these individual cards.

From the article the boe hasn’t voted on this spending since 2014.

Sure, because the BOE doesn't vote on individual employees' expense card purchases.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So the $10 million is for expense card dispersed throughout the system and used by a variety of MCPS staff.

I presume the board authorized MCPS to have personal expense cards like this? I don't know. But it does beg the question of what controls MCPS has in place to manage the expenses that are charged to these individual cards.

From the article the boe hasn’t voted on this spending since 2014.

Sure, because the BOE doesn't vote on individual employees' expense card purchases.

From the article there is no limit on how much can be spent on MCPS credit cards.

From the article the last vote was in 2014 for $0.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So the $10 million is for expense card dispersed throughout the system and used by a variety of MCPS staff.

I presume the board authorized MCPS to have personal expense cards like this? I don't know. But it does beg the question of what controls MCPS has in place to manage the expenses that are charged to these individual cards.

From the article the boe hasn’t voted on this spending since 2014.

Sure, because the BOE doesn't vote on individual employees' expense card purchases.

From the article there is no limit on how much can be spent on MCPS credit cards.

From the article the last vote was in 2014 for $0.

The article doesn't say that.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So the $10 million is for expense card dispersed throughout the system and used by a variety of MCPS staff.

I presume the board authorized MCPS to have personal expense cards like this? I don't know. But it does beg the question of what controls MCPS has in place to manage the expenses that are charged to these individual cards.

From the article the boe hasn’t voted on this spending since 2014.

Sure, because the BOE doesn't vote on individual employees' expense card purchases.

From the article there is no limit on how much can be spent on MCPS credit cards.

From the article the last vote was in 2014 for $0.

The article doesn't say that.

The article says the limit that can be spent on this vendor is $0.

Is $10,000,000 more or less than $0?

[Anonymous]

There's something like 20,000 employees at MCPS. Presumably supervisors oversee what their employees are spending funds on.

My takeaway was that the BOE is supposed to approve of anything over $25k, and there were 7 vendors who received more than that amount, but it doesn't say what vendors. In my head, instead of thinking the worst, am thinking 136 ESs each ordered $250 worth of educational and classroom supplies from Lakeshore Learning or something.

And of course there a quote from the Parent Coalition who always like to stir the pot and draw attention to themselves.

MCPS says they've already put new systems in place so it doesn't happen again. It is a new administration, so I will give them the benefit of the doubt

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:There's something like 20,000 employees at MCPS. Presumably supervisors oversee what their employees are spending funds on.

My takeaway was that the BOE is supposed to approve of anything over $25k, and there were 7 vendors who received more than that amount, but it doesn't say what vendors. In my head, instead of thinking the worst, am thinking 136 ESs each ordered $250 worth of educational and classroom supplies from Lakeshore Learning or something.

And of course there a quote from the Parent Coalition who always like to stir the pot and draw attention to themselves.

MCPS says they've already put new systems in place so it doesn't happen again. It is a new administration, so I will give them the benefit of the doubt

If you read the OIG report more in detail, you can see they randomly sampled 32 charges and found 7 illegal charges over $250K without pre-approval. There were a total of > 120K charges. The illegal procurement is way above $1 million even if a linear scale-up is not assumed.

$10 million P-card charge is a different thing. I think public can always request a public release of the transaction history.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:There's something like 20,000 employees at MCPS. Presumably supervisors oversee what their employees are spending funds on.

My takeaway was that the BOE is supposed to approve of anything over $25k, and there were 7 vendors who received more than that amount, but it doesn't say what vendors. In my head, instead of thinking the worst, am thinking 136 ESs each ordered $250 worth of educational and classroom supplies from Lakeshore Learning or something.

And of course there a quote from the Parent Coalition who always like to stir the pot and draw attention to themselves.

MCPS says they've already put new systems in place so it doesn't happen again. It is a new administration, so I will give them the benefit of the doubt

I truly do not understand why people give MCPS/Taylor this much grace given the system's track record and Taylor's own propensity for mismanagement (see the failure to respond timely to background checks issue and his spat with the OIG about it).

It's either naivete or blind loyalty to the system.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There's something like 20,000 employees at MCPS. Presumably supervisors oversee what their employees are spending funds on.

My takeaway was that the BOE is supposed to approve of anything over $25k, and there were 7 vendors who received more than that amount, but it doesn't say what vendors. In my head, instead of thinking the worst, am thinking 136 ESs each ordered $250 worth of educational and classroom supplies from Lakeshore Learning or something.

And of course there a quote from the Parent Coalition who always like to stir the pot and draw attention to themselves.

MCPS says they've already put new systems in place so it doesn't happen again. It is a new administration, so I will give them the benefit of the doubt

I truly do not understand why people give MCPS/Taylor this much grace given the system's track record and Taylor's own propensity for mismanagement (see the failure to respond timely to background checks issue and his spat with the OIG about it).

It's either naivete or blind loyalty to the system.

DP. Taylor agreed with all the conclusions in this new OIG report, though.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:There's something like 20,000 employees at MCPS. Presumably supervisors oversee what their employees are spending funds on.

My takeaway was that the BOE is supposed to approve of anything over $25k, and there were 7 vendors who received more than that amount, but it doesn't say what vendors. In my head, instead of thinking the worst, am thinking 136 ESs each ordered $250 worth of educational and classroom supplies from Lakeshore Learning or something.

And of course there a quote from the Parent Coalition who always like to stir the pot and draw attention to themselves.

MCPS says they've already put new systems in place so it doesn't happen again. It is a new administration, so I will give them the benefit of the doubt

The vendors were all listed in the Inspector General's report.

You seem to have some memory issues too. To refresh your memory,

Recently obtained documents allege Ewald charged more than $460,000 on his MCPS-issued credit card between 2016 and 2022.

Those purchases include gift cards, furniture and items that were allegedly shipped to his home --- not to MCPS.

Other records show Ewald appeared to have paid off a loan for a $64,000 Lincoln Navigator with off-the-books reimbursements.

https://wjla.com/news/local/mcps-montgomery-county-public-school-transportation-official-charles-ewald-pleads-guilty-felony-theft-scheme-illegal-charges-investigation-documents-todd-watkins

Maryland law states that any vendor that is paid over $25,000 a year is to have that spending be approved by the Board of Education.

What is your imagination telling you about $10,000,000 that makes that less than $25,000?

[Anonymous]

I think this is a report of something from the past. There was previously an P-card issue, which McKnight and now Taylor have taken steps to address by limiting who had access to P-cards and putting more caps and approvals. Additionally, the finding of 25K wasn't that the board just didn't approve a $25K procurement it was that the vendor had awards totally $25K over the course of a year, so multiple smaller payments. And MCPS seems to agree that going forward flags should be raised for those vendors so it can be brought to the board.

Also we don't know that for sure that $10M was spent without board approval, just that ABC news didn't find it on the BoE site. It could be merely misclassification and something not be published on the BoE.

Its not loyalty, its that not all of us get out pitch forks ever time a news report is written about MCPS.