By Chris Savage
On December 14, the Ann Arbor Board of Education members approved a new HVAC Journeyman contract with Flint-based D.M. Burr, Inc. D.M. Burr’s bid was $66,727 less than the bid of Johnson Controls, the next lowest bidder and current holder of the contract. Why the difference? This chart tells the tale:
[Source: Ann Arbor Public School Board]
$49,460 higher wage and benefit costs for Johnson Controls than for D.M. Burr. Why is that? Because Johnson Controls uses unionized workers who, in typical greedy union style, like to actually make enough in wages and benefits to support a family and live a comfortable middle class lifestyle. D.M. Burr’s employees are not unionized and make a substantially lower amount.
[A2P Notes: Trustees who voted against the union shop included Andy Thomas, who took $1,000 from the local teacher’s union this Fall while running for re-election, according to campaign finance forms. Other BOE trustees who’ve accepted money from unions to run their school board campaigns, but who voted against hiring the unionized company, include Board President Deb Mexicotte. When Mexicotte ran for the BOE in 2003, she accepted $500 from the MEA Political Action Committee after the election. Likewise, after he was first elected in 2002 and re-elected in 2005, Trustee Glenn Nelson accepted a donation from the local teacher’s union and the MEA Political Action Committee, respectively, according to campaign finance forms. Current Board Vice President Susan Baskett has taken far and above the most money from union political action committees, beginning in 2003 when she first ran for the BOE. In 2003, Baskett’s donors include the local teacher’s union, Laborer’s Local 959 and, after the election, a $500 donation from the MEA PAC. However, unlike Thomas, Nelson and Mexicotte, Baskett voted against awarding the contract to D.M. Burr.]
Now, you may be thinking, “Chris, times are tough. We need to trim costs wherever we can and make those cuts as far from the kids as possible. Facilities maintenance is just going to have to deal with it.” That’s a reasonable argument on its face. But, it doesn’t tell the full story. Which, of course, I am about to do.
This story starts out with the “keep it local” argument but it doesn’t end there. There are certainly good reasons for “keeping it local”. You benefit the local economy, of course. But, just as important, you create goodwill within the community. As Board member Susan Baskett put it, “When the district undercuts local contractors, it takes away their trust.” And that goodwill can pay dividends later.
Susan Baskett … noted that community trust will be necessary to gain support for the upcoming technology bond and any other future millages. She reminded the board that the union members who spoke during public commentary have supported the community, and that contractors from outside the community will not be paid a prevailing wage.
Not only that, it sends a bigger message, as well, according to Baskett.
Baskett called the bid recommendation “cheap and shortsighted,” and argued that it was not in line with the district’s strategic plan, in that it does not engender trust and support of the district’s constituents. Calling it “disrespectful” to local workers to accept a bid that does not pay prevailing wage, Baskett argued, “We are not asking anyone to do this job for free. We expect a job well done and we should be willing to pay for it.”
Indeed, there is precedence for this. In 2005, then Bond Director Julianne Chard sent a two-page memo (Page 1, Page 2) with supplemental criteria for the awarding of construction contracts.
The Bond Office recommends that the following supplemental criteria be taken into account in the awarding of construction projects…We believe these criteria reflect the values of the District and will help to ensure quality in the performance of work, while still retaining an inclusive selection process. These criteria are in addition to the standard criteria of price, quality, financial strength, good reputation, and demonstrated experience in the relevant work, etc. […]
[T]hese criteria should simply be considered and applied on a case by case basis…
So, what were these supplemental criteria? Here are some with relevance to the HVAC Journeyman’s contract bid:
- Local business presence in the Ann Arbor Public School District and Washtenaw County
- Local workforce in the Ann Arbor Public School District and Washtenaw County
- Prevailing wages (compliance and benefits)
But there’s another aspect to this story that was brought to light by several people during the public comment sections of recent Board meetings. Tom Yax, a now-retired member of the local plumbers and pipefitters union, discussed the fact that the local unions pay for scholarships for Ann Arbor students to go through trade apprenticeship programs. I spoke with Brit Satchwell, president of the Ann Arbor Education Association and asked him about this. “The local trade unions pay for $40-50,000 per year in scholarships so that Ann Arbor students can participate in the apprenticeship program,” he told me. “By awarding bids like this to out-of-town vendors, we undercut out own graduates.”
Satchwell also spoke to the Board.
AAEA president Brit Satchwell pointed out that the skilled trades training program mentioned during public commentary for AAPS graduates is a 4-5 year program, and that the $10-$12,000 annual program cost is paid for by local tradespeople. When students graduate, Satchwell said, they can expect to step into decent-paying jobs with decent benefits, so they can in turn start to give back and be contributing members in the community. He also praised specific contributions to AAPS and other community groups made by local union workers.
Satchwell noted that the first three words of Ann Arbor Public Schools are “Ann Arbor Public,” and that it’s a “downward spiral” when the board lets people come in from the outside and undercut local community members. “I am not interested in one more FTE at the expense of the community … When you lower the quality of life for the parents, you impact the students directly,” he said.
Despite these issues, the Board chose to award the bid to the out-of-town firm D.M. Burr anyway. Perhaps they felt pressure to save money because at the same meeting they raised the salaries of two District staffers to $140,000 a year. These two are part of a group of no less than 59 District employees that make over $100,000 annually. Of these 59, only four are teachers.
Last month, the Washtenaw County Board of Commissioners voted to walk away from a contract worth three times what they were paying for it when they unilaterally chose to cut their payment to the Humane Society of Huron Valley by half. This way of thinking appears rampant in our community. The Ann Arbor Public School District may pay a bit more for services provided by unionized workers. However, in return, they receive far more benefits than they are paying for. From tens of thousands of dollars in scholarships to Ann Arbor students pursuing careers in the trades to support for millage proposals, these union members are strong allies for the District who has now put a thumb in their eye.
Instead, they have chosen a firm from Flint that has no ties or connections to our community or to our kids. They don’t pay prevailing wages to their workers and the benefits they offer are far less than the union members that live and work in Ann Arbor. They have done this in order to save $66,727 at a time when they are giving school administrators raises that increase their six-figure salaries to an even higher level. Ironically, the amount saved by this move is almost exactly how much the salary of the AAPS superintendent was increased just a year ago.
Perhaps the school board used a coupon similar this one found on D.M. Burr’s website:
Maybe the next time the District is looking for support for a millage renewal in the future, they’ll be lucky enough to find a D.M. Burr coupon they can cash in for help getting out the vote in the local community. Because if I were a union member in this school district, I would seriously be reconsidering my support.
For more of Chris Savage’s writing visit Eclectablog.
@schoolsmuse it sure SHOULD say Deb Mexicotte is the Prez. Change made, and thanks for catching the error.
That should say: Vice President.
I believe that Deb Mexicotte is currently President, and Susan Baskett is Vice Present.
@Joe, there is a hidden benefit of buying local and that is helping one’s community stay vibrant. I am with you that paying more simply because it’s local makes little sense. However, I’ve come to see that buying Michigan grown food, for example, may cost a bit more but is ultimately helping our state’s economy. Our own company brought all of its printing work back to Michigan. We selected a local company, Malloy. I made this decision because I felt an obligation to see that my own home remains a vibrant place to live. Is Malloy always the least expensive bid when we print a book? No. However, I see a company that gives back to our community in a myriad of ways, and as someone who gets to decide where we do business, I see that community support as a business value I want to encourage.
@a2politico: You’re saying that the board members are independent enough and forward thinking to take union money at election time and not be in their pocket? I like that.
@Chris: I don’t agree with the idea of going with the union bid just because they are union. The unions need to sell their experience better, if indeed they are better. In this case, perhaps the better did not equate to the difference.
As far as just buying local, I’m not blindly in favor of that. If local is equal, yes, by all means buy local (I’m always looking for things not made in China). I get to deal with the shenanigans of both Ohio and Illinois, who’ve both have raised the cost of doing business to anyone not from those states, and that’s a royal pain to deal with. Hell, it’s un-American.
And I would say, that AAPS isn’t making any calculus that the unions will continue to support them. Sure doesn’t look that way. They aren’t making decision on appearance, on what looks good to certain voting blocks, I think. It looks to me that they are just doing what they gotta do because they gotta do it and are letting the pieces fall they may…and that’s how it should be.
Let me jump in here and say that it was MY idea to include the campaign finance information, to look at the vote against the union shop as a function of which BOE members have accepted what from which unions. That wasn’t clear, initially, and it should have been. It is, I think, always pertinent when looking into votes to also look into campaign finance. I think we have seen quite clearly on the local, state and, certainly the national level, the influence of campaign money on votes. As I wrote in a recent piece about securing information from the AAPS concerning actual enrollment, this is a BOE and school District that have functioned for a good long while without the kind of scrutiny Chris offers in this piece.
Agree or disagree with the content of the piece, but the issues that Chris is bringing up are ones that need to be examined and discussed openly.
What does “local” mean? @rose has a different definition than, say, someone who belongs to the Ann Arbor Think Local First collective might have, perhaps. That’s worth a pause and, certainly, thought.
Again, I apologize for not making it clear the information about the BOE members’ campaign finances was my insertion into Chris’s piece to help, I’d hoped, bring important information to the table in what is certainly an important discussion.
And yeah, Flint is local to me. Work here or there is good for Michigan. There’s no place for clannishness like only A2 money for A2 people, not in my book.
I think some board members view themselves as acting traitorously on a non-union vote. It’s a transaction, not a partnership.It should be an equitable, respectful transaction, but it’s a transaction. AAPS has a partnership with parents and kids and staff. I want staff at school to be good to my kids, to do their jobs, and to not be unhappy about their work situation. I do want staff to be treated well. That doesn’t mean a vote for a union shop every time. AAPS should be about educating the kids and doing that to the best of their abilities given the current realities.
I don’t quite get Chris Savage’s point, except that the Board was somehow acting traitorously to unions, except they aren’t, they are preserving more money for the school staff. All union all the time? Maybe, when they are someone’s big financial contributor. I think the Board’s majority are acting like grownups, making hard unpopular choices in the name of good governance. I hate to see other Board members give them a hard time, and make hay from appearances, while knowing their vote doesn’t change good governance. It’s like they get to score east points with potential voters and contributors while every one else is taking the high road and voting responsibly.
I don’t think they are acting “traitoriously”, I think they are acting short-sightedly. These union members you seem to be disparaging provide far more to the AAPS than D.M. Burr will be providing. It’s not a “quid pro quo” situation as you described it elsewhere. It ought to be a partnership. Except that it’s not because in a race to the bottom like this, the AAPS is foresaking a valuable partner by going outside of our community.
We have a middle class in this country thanks to the unions who made making a living wage a reality for most Americans (even those that aren’t unionized.) This isn’t a platitude, it’s the reality. The recent effort to demonize union members doesn’t change that. The AAPS is making a calculation that the unions will keep working on behalf of our students but that the district doesn’t have to be part of the partnership.
This decision to go with the Flint company seems to be the optimum choice economically, and shows the school board knows what good government is.
Does Chris Savage want the school board to award contracts to whichever group gives the board the most campaign money? That’s the logical outcome of his thought.
Instead, the board went with the lowest responsible bidder, which is the choice it is legally required to make.
And I’m just not getting the out-of-town aspect of this piece. The winning bidder is based in Flint. That’s in Michigan, and supports our state economy. Johnson Controls is a nationwide company, is it not. Where would its workers come from?
No, I don’t believe campaign money has anything to do with this decision. I belive they are being “penny wise and pound foolish”. As both Brit Satchwell and Susan Baskett rightfully point out, the union members in our community bring a lot more to the table than just keeping the boilers and air conditioners humming. They provide tens of thousands of dollars worth of scholarships to our students that are going into the trades and they help the school district by GOTVing for millages when they are on the ballot. Undercutting the very people that are supporting our students seems short-sighted to me.
And, yeah, I’m all about “buying local”. Absolutely. Supporting your local community and local community members is a good thing.
I see a post is missing. Let me try again. The vote to go with the cheapest bid is a win for the Flint based company, which, in my mind, is not really non local, and the people there could use the boost. It bothered me that Simone Lightfoot got testy with Dr. Green about Dave Comsa’s and Rob Allen’s raises, saying there are plenty of people to take their places. It doesn’t seem she understood that she was arguing the very point about the HVAC bid. It bothers me more that Rob Allen’s dedication and performance isn’t something some board members value. He of the last 3 people who have been in the Superintendents positions, worked for the least amount of money, and did a stand up job. He kept the books accurate, and when the auditors came, AAPS got good reviews. This raise was over multiple years and so it looks bigger than it really is. As for as David Comsa, this could be a very tough year, and the money may may not be enough, after all is said and done, as now he has a lot more work than before Pat Green showed up.
If people want to not vote for the millage, that’s their right If union people don’t want to contribute anymore, money or time or support that’s their right. Supporting the schools should not be a quid pro quo situation.
What’s your definition of what you want to happen? Is a balanced budget the goal? Reelection? Maximum money going to the kids?
Maximum maintenance of income for self? What’s the floor a teacher will take and not walk? What about Rob Allen? Does it matter if they do or don’t take the deals offered? There aren’t that many good interim Superintendents who are also good with money, and also makes sure the auditors praise the state of AAPS books.. He’s a good employee, and he’s proven it. I hate to see the crap he’s taking right now, and from the board no less. We are in a time of tremendous flux.
And I will argue that the goodwill Baskett is trying to buy won’t be bought with her decisions,line of argument or votes at this time. The heat for what is coming down the pike won’t stop because of her vote on this. Given the situation with the charters being uncapped, which will significantly drive down the salary of a teacher in this state, her public arguments undermine the Board’s ability to manage this very difficult passage and she underestimates just how much more difficult it will be to pass the millage if she continues to get played so well by unhappy union people.