The school board must dig deeper into the decisions behind its mess with an $8 million software purchase, as much as members want to move forward.
The lapses in judgment, spending and communication don't merely defy common sense. The senior people who committed them are the types who should have known better.
It is not enough this time to tighten-up policies and resolve to do better in the future. It's not enough to know only that a respected assistant superintendent — a financial wiz — approved millions of dollars in payments for a product that hadn't been delivered. Or that the district's longtime attorney didn't flag (or see) a sales agreement bearing few product or price details, no delivery dates and no payment schedule.
To protect taxpayers, our elected school leaders need to understand why those things happened. Were they unfortunate mistakes that can be prevented in the future with policy? (That seemed to be the board's consensus this past week.) Or were they something worse — like favoritism, neglect or abuse of public funds?
A technology auditor says the software itself is pretty good and not far behind.
Now, it's the people who need examining.
Revising the story
Findings reported by auditors and consulting attorneys Tuesday called into question much of the rationale I've heard about Brevard Public Schools history with software contractor CrossPointe, just recently acquired by a Canadian company.
The district first hired CrossPointe in 2002 to provide software to run its personnel and business functions, including contracting, finance, payroll and employee information. More than a decade later, the aging system still worked and the company kept charging to maintain it. The software licenses were "perpetual," meaning no expiration date, said attorneys from Widerman Malek who reviewed the deal.
So why on earth did then-Superintendent Brian Binggeli tell the school board in 2013 it had to urgently extend CrossPointe's contract and replace the district's software? The board also was voting to close three schools to save $2.7 million a year, and the timing infuriated school supporters.
Was Binggeli misled?
Back then, school board member Andy Ziegler met with CrossPoint's representatives and reviewed what appeared to be ready-to-go "modules" for an upgraded web-based system, he said. As of this past week, computer code for 10 out of 11 modules had been installed, but only one was running.
Did Ziegler get snowed?
The so-called contract for the multiminillion-dollar software turns out to be little more than a company sale-order form, consulting attorneys found. It called for the new software to be "delivered" upon receipt of a down payment. But it did not include prices or descriptions of items, payment or delivery dates, or a "scope of work" for the contractor, the attorneys found.
School Board attorney Harold Bistline was "part of the negotiations at some point," chairwoman Amy Kneessy said Tuesday. But the board has no policy that requires legal review of contracts over a certain amount.
Still, how did such a flimsy "contract" got past Bistline?
Since then, associate superintendent Judy Preston paid CrossPointe about $4.3 million she shouldn't have — including $200,000 maintenance fees — for a product that hadn't even been delivered, the consultants reported.
"It was either pay in advance or pay in arrears," Preston told FLORIDA TODAY reporter Jessica Saggio.
But she didn't have to pay at all, attorneys said.
So why did she?
Need to know more
The big surprise is that delivery isn't far behind, as big software projects go. With a 2013 start and a typical number of bugs and delays, Brevard could reasonably expect things to work by 2016-17, said Jeff Britton, director of technology and management consulting for the McGladrey auditing firm.
"The technology is very, very good," said Tim Fitzgerald, vice president of Canada-based Harris School Solutions, which recently absorbed CrossPointe. Harris set new target dates, replaced management and committed more staff.
But something baffles Fitzgerald.
Brevard and CrossPoint agreed to more than 20 changes and modifications, but kept no record of any of them on which to base new time and cost estimates.
Why not?
"It's not unusual in the software industry for projects to go sideways and not meet their dates," said attorney Ed Kindberg of Widerman Malek in Melbourne. "But when it started going sideways, the staff should have brought that to the board and amended the contract so the board had knowledge of what was going on."
Why wasn't the school board in on it?
It needs to know more than it does now.
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