BEVERLY — A lawsuit, confusion and a lack of time stymied a proposal that, according to an ad hoc committee's preliminary report, could have saved the Beverly School District up to $750,000 over the next three years.
Partly for lack of information, School Committee members balked at a proposal recently to outsource the district's nearly $1.2 million food services program, which according to one report is now running in the red by about $15,000. The committee opted not to vote on the proposal.
Proponents of the plan said handing over the district's food services to an outside firm could have saved the district about $118,000 per year in health insurance, $110,000 in salaries, and would have netted an additional $11,000 to $50,000 or so per year in reimbursements from the company hired to run the program.
The report — created by an ad hoc committee charged with investigating whether outsourcing the food services could save money — has still not been finalized. However, Todd Rotondo, a member of the food committee, said the estimates on savings are accurate.
"Those are real numbers, we discussed (benefits) with the business manager, and we know the salaries budgeted," he said.
The problem was, School Committee members did not have accurate numbers when they declined to vote on the issue after a two-plus hour discussion June 22. The final savings — compiled over the course of a 10-month investigation — were still unclear, partly because a lawsuit shut down the food committee's ability to continue the research for a month between May and June.
Sodexo, one of the firms in the running to manage Beverly's food services, took court action in mid-May after the food committee disqualified its application on a technicality. A judge eventually ruled in mid-June that the company should be allowed to remain in contention. After the critical month-long delay, Sodexo finally presented to the food committee June 22, mere hours before the food committee was to present a final report to the School Committee.
As a result, the final report was not ready in time for the meeting, Rotondo said.
"Some of the numbers that were discussed that night do not match up with this report," said Beverly Mayor Bill Scanlon, who sits on the School Committee, and received an updated savings estimate from Rotondo about a week after the School Committee meeting. "Some of the (savings) numbers are much larger in this report than they were that night."
Depending on which firm the school district hired, the savings in the district's food services system could have been between $666,000 and $757,600 over the next three years, according to the committee's still-not-final report. The ad hoc food committee voted 4-1 to outsource the school department's food services.
It's unclear, however, whether the School Committee would have opted to outsource even if all of the potential savings were known at the time.
"We talked about this until we were blue in the face. There was certainly no guarantee that we would save that amount of money," Scanlon said. "I think people saw it as a fairly radical change at this point" in the year.
With the end of the fiscal year a week away, the committee felt compelled to make a decision quickly, so food service workers would know their fate. In the event the district did outsource, each of the three companies in contention said it would likely hire Beverly's existing kitchen staff, but there were no guarantees.
The district's food staff's contract expired Friday, and Beverly has already been without a food director for more than a year. If there was to be a major shake-up in the school's food service "this would have been the year," said Rotondo, who was a strong advocate for outsourcing.
"Had (the School Committee) had the accurate numbers in front of them, it would have been a different outcome probably," he said. "I was disappointed. These savings can save teachers' jobs. What's the point of putting together an ad hoc committee if you're not going to listen to its recommendation?"
School Committee Chairwoman Annmarie McNulty-Cesa also worked on the food committee and voted to outsource. At the June 22 School Committee meeting, McNulty-Cesa called for a motion to be made on the outsourcing issue, but none came.
"I can't speak for the other members of the School Committee. I don't know why a motion was not made," she said. "I was surprised, very surprised."
Asked what happens now to the proposal, McNulty-Cesa said, "It's done."
"I think people thought we are running a good program now and you can not necessarily (guarantee) the best quality if you outsource it," she said. "And there's always fear of the unknown. There could be potential costs we don't know about."
Although nothing came of it, the report will be handy if the district wants to resurrect it down the road, McNulty-Cesa said. And several committee members, including Rotondo, said they would work with a new food director to incorporate a lot of the ideas they took away from meeting with the private sector.
"The process was long and meaningful. Our eyes are open," he said. "There are a lot of little things we can do and a lot we learned as a group and can take away from this. As disappointing as the (School Committee's) decision is, let's learn from it and make things better for the food service system."
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