Monday, May 16, 2016

DOE's Expensive Contract To Supply Students With Bottled Water.


Every school I journey to has a bottled water machine in the student cafeteria and in other student accessible areas in and around the school.  The bottled water machine is Aquafine and for a bottle of water it cost $1.25.  This seems high for purified water and so I was in Costco this weekend and saw that Costco was selling their own bottled water in their machine.  It was  called Kirkland purified water and it cost only $0.25 for a cold bottle.  The question is a $1.00 per bottle markup appropriate for students, many living in poverty and some homeless?  The answer is certainly not.

Sure, the DOE will claim that transportation costs, vandalism, and the many bottled water machines needed for the schools throughout the City accounts for the cost difference.  However, does this account for the dollar difference?  I don't think so.  To me its all about greed and maybe the DOE's slogan should change from "children first" to "greed is good" when it comes to forcing the students to fork over their money for bottled water at a markup of  400% over what Costco charges its own brand.

Since the Bloomberg years the DOE has award many contracts to consultants that cost the school system millions of dollars over the actual cost of services and the contract with the bottled water vender is just another example of the DOE wasting precious money on questionable contracts at the expense of the students of the school system.  It's "children last" always when it comes to DOE awarding contracts.
at

6 comments:

  1. Anonymous7:44 PM

    DeBlasio doesn't have the money Bloomberg has - it has to be made somewhere. Bloomy gave huge contracts to his friends and made them wealthy - including Klien. Garbage bags, water, lunch food, computers, tech services, toilet paper - there's a fortune to be made from any of those niches. This is why the deformers want the schools privatized.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Unitymustgo!7:58 PM

    In my school water is $1 in student cafeteria and $1.25 in teachers lounge??

    ReplyDelete
  3. Anonymous6:30 AM

    Chaz.... All vending machine profits go to the school's Student Organization. The DOE does not get any of it.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Anonymous6:32 AM

    Water, and everything else sold to schools is a ripoff. Anything the School Construction Authority touches is grossly overcharged. I had one AP rail against the Bloomberg regime, claiming that everything going into the schools (hardware, computers, equipment of all kinds) was at least twice the price you could buy from private sources. It was a gravy train for cronies. I look at my neighborhood, and see the evidence of Bloomberg cronie graft and corruption for miles. Sidewalks, and block corners were ripped up , seemingly overnight, and replaced with other construction that makes no sense at all, for as long as the eye can see. And this was done in all the boroughs. Yes, we are now in the DeB administration, where the city sells a building for 5 million bucks, and the buyer then flips it for 80 million in a few months. See The Rivington Building scandal. Meet the new Boss...he Da same as Da old Boss...

    ReplyDelete
  5. Chaz4:26 PM

    Anon 6:30

    Yeah, sure and you believe in the tooth fairy also. The gross profits go to the contractor and the DOE reduces their amount by claiming the students organizations get a cut of the bottle machine, a very small cut.

    ReplyDelete
  6. NYC Educator6:29 PM

    Costco sells things at a 14% markup. That means the DOE is selling water for over a 500% markup. That's how we put Children First in Fun City.

    ReplyDelete