School safety pact expires

The D.C. Public School System’s multimillion-dollar contract with a company that provides security officers for city schools expired yesterday, but officials weren’t saying whether they planned to renew the agreement.

“We are still negotiating,” said Lucy Young, spokeswoman for the public schools. “The only thing I can say right now, for sure, is that there will be security in the schools tomorrow.”

The school system’s three-year, $45.6 million contract with Watkins Security of D.C. Inc. faces an ongoing review by the D.C. Office of Inspector General after the February shooting death of a student inside Ballou High School in Southeast.

Watkins Security contracted with the school system last summer, agreeing to post about 300 security officers and supervisors in public schools.

The status of the contract remains uncertain because school system officials never sent the agreement to D.C. Council for approval, as required under city contracting law.

Instead, the school system has paid the company at least $6.8 million through a series of short-term emergency “letter contracts” worth nearly $1 million each. D.C. law requires Council approval for all contracts worth more than $1 million.

The president of Watkins Security, former Metropolitan Police Detective Richard Hamilton, said yesterday he thought the school system would award his company another emergency contract, even though Council members have called the practice illegal.

“I don’t know whether there is a contract or not, but I am putting security in the schools tomorrow,” Mr. Hamilton said. “I have a responsibility as a citizen to do that.”

The security arrangements have come under scrutiny since the Feb. 2 shooting death of student James Richardson, 17, inside Ballou High School. Thomas Boykin, 18, who reportedly used a gun smuggled past security guards, is being held without bond on charges related to the teen’s death.

Since the shooting, the principals at Wilson High School and Cardozo High School have complained to council members that poorly performing security guards are not fired, but recycled through reassignments to other schools.

Wendy Glenn-Flood, a PTA member at Eastern High School in Northeast, testified at a Council hearing last month that she recognized a Watkins school security guard as a former D.C. Jail inmate through her outreach work at the facility.

Mr. Hamilton, who has refuted those accusations, said yesterday he wants the school system to follow through on its original three-year contract.

“I’m sure they’ll work something out,” Mr. Hamilton said, referring to school system contracting officials. “But it doesn’t do us any good to be working month to month like this, not knowing where we’re going.”

Council member Adrian Fenty, Ward 4 Democrat and critic of the Watkins contract, said yesterday that school system officials “knew about this for weeks, and yet they’re waiting until the 11th hour of the last day. It’s not just that they’re not saying publicly what they’re doing, it’s the fact that they haven’t even decided yet.

“I’m sure they’re going to end up doing another illegal contract. What else can they do at this point?” Mr. Fenty said. “I think when we get to the bottom of this security contract, it’s going to be amazing. It’s one of the worst contracting practices we’ve ever heard of in District of Columbia government.”

Mr. Fenty said the school system should scrap its current security contract and start again.

“The only solution they have is to rebid this contract and get a reputable contractor in here to provide school security,” Mr. Fenty said.

Meanwhile, the Inspector General’s Office continues to review several issues regarding the Watkins Security contract, including the background checks and training of guards.