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Marietta Daily Journal
August 15, 2005
REPORT CLAIMS REDDEN DECEIVED BOARD, PUBLIC
MARIETTA, GA - In a surprise move late Sunday night, a beleaguered Cobb School Board emerged from a three-and-a-half-hour executive session at Atlanta Country Club and released an audit report by a New York firm that board Vice Chairwoman Dr. Teresa Plenge said revealed that "state law and policy had not been followed" in selecting Apple Computer as the laptop supplier for Superintendent Joe Redden's now defunct $100.8 million Power to Learn initiative.
A visibly shaken Dr. Plenge, who had been a Redden supporter, expressed a strong sense of betrayal by the report and board member Lindsey Tippins called it "disappointing and disturbing."
The report was so disturbing that the board voted after the session to terminate the school district's contract with Apple, which includes the $25 million first phase that would have delivered 6,550 laptops to Cobb teachers. A recent ruling by a Cobb Superior Court judge, which halted the PTL initiative, had allowed for Cobb's 7,100 teachers to receive the Phase I laptops. But only the 550 computers that already have been received for a pilot program can be kept.
No action was taken against Redden, but suspending him without pay until the board studies the report further was discussed.
Asked if the board should fire Redden, board member Betty Gray said in a grim tone, "That's for a latter date."
The Kessler International forensic audit report said in no uncertain terms that the final of three evaluation committees - headed by Redden and including Deputy Superintendent Don Beers and three of Redden's key central office staffers - had deceived the board and the public by manipulating the PTL bid in Apple's favor.
"We find it particularly egregious the fact that the School Board and the taxpayers were deceived by the procurement process," the report said. "The actions of a few resulted in the unnecessary costs to the District, and more seriously, the release of incorrect information which the Board was required to make a decision on involving millions of taxpayer dollars. Those responsible clearly wanted to create a false impression of the results of the negotiations to justify their decision."
Board Chairwoman Kathie Johnstone issued a statement after the meeting. "We don not consider the investigation complete and there are additional questions we have."
The board has a scheduled meeting Wednesday night, but Ms. Johnstone did not say if the report would be discussed further then.
Board members engaged in a sometimes heated debate Sunday night behind closed doors, during which it was recommended that Redden be suspended without pay. No action was taken on Redden, and Ms. Gray said she, Tippins and Dr. Plenge presented a convincing enough case to the other four board members to release the report.
There was some discussion in executive session about how the board would be portrayed in the media after the results were public. But board member Curt Johnston summed it up when he said "we're going to take a beating either way."
Dr. Plenge, who had been strongly behind Redden until Sunday night, said she stayed up most of Saturday night reading the audit and felt betrayed by its findings.
"I am furious," said Dr. Plenge, who was so upset she was shaking. "I'm furious at what the report revealed. The state of Georgia does not allow school board members or the school board as a whole to get involved in the bidding process, so we have to depend on and trust our administration to follow state laws and follow our local policies. That wasn't done. My trust has been violated and I am furious."
Dr. Plenge admitted that she had been "a big supporter of Joe's" and said she was upset for him to come up with something as "unorganized" as the laptop program "in the middle of an election year."
"Public confidence with the board is at an all time low," she lamented.
"It only confirmed the uneasiness I've had all along with this," said Ms. Gray.
Board members Johnny Johnson, Johnston and Ms. Johnstone refused to comment, while board member Laura Searcy said she hadn't even read the report.
Asked about Dr. Plenge's statement, Beers said, "What are you trying to pull?" asking if the reporter was trying to get him in a fighting match with a board member.
Asked if he was concerned about the contents of the report, since board members were so upset about it, Beers said, "I'm concerned about you pulling sections of the report to sully my reputation. That's what I'm concerned about."
Beers said, flippantly, what really ruined his day was that he had to sell his fishing boat, docked at St. Augustine, Fla.
Asked exactly what that meant, he refused to say. However, in a letter on March 5, 2001, when he was approaching Beers about becoming Cobb's deputy superintendent, Redden wrote: "The real question is how hard you (Don) want to work, or how big a boat you want to eventually buy."
Beers said he had not read the report and would not comment to the Marietta Daily Journal after he did read it, except through press releases from his spokesman Jay Dillon. He said Dillon had instructed him not to comment.
"My public thinks this is a witch hunt," Ms. Johnstone angrily told the board in executive session, during which she defended Redden.
When the group agreed to send out a news release on the report, Ms. Searcy asked, "Can Jay (Dillon) do it without Joe's permission?"
This was the third major meeting Redden has missed in the last month. On July 23, he missed the Cobb School District Back-To-School Leadership Conference - the first time a superintendent missed the meeting, one principal said. And on August 1, Redden missed a school board meeting where the board announced its laptop program was dead due to a ruling by Cobb Superior Court Judge S. Lark Ingram, who halted the program in a July 29 order.
The board unanimously voted to hire the Kessler International on July 14 after court testimony revealed Redden allegedly threw the bid to carry out the $100.8 million laptop program to Apple Computer.
The board also asked Cobb District Attorney Pat Head to conduct an investigation, which is ongoing, into the charges.
The Kessler report verifies that the third of three evaluation committees basically discarded a rating system by the second committee that had Dell ranked first, IBM second and Apple a distant third. It said that data was manipulated by the third committee to move Apple to the front.
The phase two evaluation committee included Dr. Mindy DiSalvo, who was appointed to the district's Facilities and Technology Committee in 2003.
On July 8 Dr. DiSalvo testified before Cobb Superior Court Judge S. Lark Ingram in a suit brought by former Cobb Commissioner Butch Thompson against Redden and the five board members who voted for his laptop program that even though Dell scored highest, with IBM following closely and Apple trailing far behind that Donna Oliver, the district's director of curriculum and instruction, said, "We all know how this has to turn out," prior to the third evaluation committee that was directed by Redden.
Dr. DiSalvo said, "After that comment was made, we weren't the decision makers."
Although Dell received the highest score in the original evaluation, Dr. DiSalvo said Apple won the bid.
"The score for the vendors were changed," she testified.
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