Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...

By James W. Robinson

Staff Writer

The Suffolk School Board saw the approval of Ordinance 2024/25-25, amending school board policy for the contractual authority of the School Superintendent with contracts not requiring sealed bids or competitive negotiation. 

The ordinance was approved by a vote of 4 to 3, with Board Members Kimberly Slingluff, Dr. Dawn Marie Brittingham and Tyron Riddick in opposition to the vote. This follows the board’s Sept. 12 decision to table the final vote to receive a report from SPS Superintendent Dr. John B. Gordon III detailing purchases above $100,000 he has made during his tenure. Prior to the vote, Slingluff says that there were misunderstandings regarding the policy amongst her and other board members, stating that the policy “does not impact” Gordon’s ability to spend money. 

“He can still spend the money, it’s not limiting his ability to spend money. Number two, it does not have anything to do with board oversight and the board relinquishing fiscal oversight or fiscal obligations from our care to the administration,” Slingluff said. “…Number three, it does impact the process of the procurement by increasing the threshold for informal procurement processes, which would be the small purchasing procedures, potentially decreasing the length of time it takes for purchasing products and services.”

Slingluff continued.

“Number four, as stated by the Superintendent and also when I spoke with our Attorney this week, it directly relates to small purchasing procedures and not emergency purchase provisions. It has nothing to do with emergency purchasing provisions, but there’s a different procurement process that allows for exceptions for emergencies,” she said. “And I bring this out because going into the last meeting, my instinct having done the prep that I did prior to that one was not favorable for that policy. So my thought process was, if this is something that we are going to approve, then I want to understand the need for it…”

Slingluff expressed her request to send the policy back to the Policy Review Committee to compare the policy’s language to the Code of Virginia and add language for a monthly reporting system to inform all board members of purchases made using an informal small purchasing procedure. She further noted that sending the policy back would allow Gordon and his staff “a little more time” to complete the report and submit it to the board before making a final vote. 

“Truly it really just needs to be all purchases between $100,000 and $300,000 so we can see the items that would fall into this range,” Slingluff said.

Board Member Dr. Judith Brooks-Buck expressed that it would have the board “looking for something that is not there.”

“My problem is that we have already understood, because Mrs. [Wendy] Forsman stood before us and explained, Dr. Gordon shared with us last time, that we had air conditioning break down just before school started, we had some other things to do, so it’s been explained and explained and explained,” Brooks-Buck said. “I don’t know what we’re looking for, but whatever it is we’re looking for, it is not there. We haven’t done anything that isn’t supposed to be done and it’s causing extra work for people, in my opinion, that is unnecessary because it’s not going to prove a point that is not provable because it is not so.” 

While a five year memorandum was provided detailing new restroom sinks and countertops for Lakeland and Nansemond River High School, Architectural Services Expansion for Northern Shores Elementary School, renovations from Lakeland High School’s auditorium and the C.A.R.E.S. Act III mental roof replacement, Slingluff discussed issues with it.

“One of those four items that were mentioned and there fell in the threshold in the 100,000 to 300,000 range, which would have been prohibitive to go through the small purchasing process,” Slingluff said. “The other two were over a million so it had nothing to do with this policy that we are looking at, which gives freedom up to $300,000 and limits it above that. It had nothing to do with this new threshold that would be opening. So there’s only one that applied to it.”

Brooks-Buck further asked how long it would take to go over “five years of reports to find out when decisions were made,” SPS Chief Financial Officer Wendy Forsman noted during the COVID-19 pandemic there was an influx of emergency purchases. She further apologized as her understanding of the request was “anything over $100,000 that was delayed or would have been delayed by this policy.”

“If you start going into what’s over $100,000 that we just purchased, I mean, there’s like, 20 items just even on this particular one. But they are things like electricity and food … Do you really want all that?” Forsman said. “…Those are normal everyday purchases of the department to feed kids and to provide electricity and to purchase gasoline for the tanks, I mean, those items can be $100,000 at a time.”

Gordon followed, expressing his concern over the “need for additional oversight.”

“That’s the part that is really troubling for me,” Gordon said. “If we know based on the information that was given in the memo, if we know that the language that is being used and the letter that Mr. [Wendell] Waller wrote today and the feedback that I gave you Ms. Slingluff when you asked about small purchase procedures, if we know that we have to follow the procurement process, if we know that we have bills and payroll that shows everything that we purchased every month, this isn’t Microsoft Excel. This comes straight from the financing program and allocation that Ms. Forsman does. There is no highlighting.”

Following the vote, Slingluff asked for a point of privilege to express her wish for more communication between the board.

“Last month the board voted on one thing, it was not followed through with by the administration, and this board just turned a blind eye to that and disregarded the fact that the board voted for something,” Slingluff said. “Had it been a hardship for this staff, it should have been communicated with the board. We’re all reasonable up here, but to simply deny the request that was voted on by the will of the board, to not provide what was requested by the will of the board, to disregard three different days of communication to find out where that report was and to have the line mum is why having reports like indicating specific details about processes should be included so that communication is better.”

Slingluff continued, saying the goal is not to catch someone, rather about communication and working together.

“This is about communication, about working as a team, about collaborating together and…tonight, I am most disheartened by the fact that this board did not stand by a request and a vote that the will of the board came to,” she said. “It was disregarded by our staff and not fulfilled, and I think ‘How can you go forward executing anything if it can be disregarded when the board voted?’ And I am actually a little ashamed that this is how we’re going to operate.”