Staff
Ryan Sawyers, Prince William County School Board Chairman.
In a post on Facebook Thursday evening, Prince William County Schools Chairman At-Large Ryan Sawyers outlined his plan to bring consistent spending to the current site-based management system employed by administrators in the school division. According to Sawyers, the concerns of residents over spending at PWC schools has prompted him to act.
"As most people in Prince William County know, I think site-based management has a number of considerable weaknesses. One of these is the lack of a uniform financial controls employed at individual schools," Sawyers said. "Unfortunately, previous school boards proved unable to develop policies effective at ensuring consistent fiscal management within the individual schools under the system they created." Under his plan, the Board will form a "School Procurement Oversight Committee," which will consist of eight citizens appointed by school board members. "This working committee shall meet regularly and will be responsible for ensuring that the appropriate level of due diligence is applied to each purchase made by a school that exceeds a yet-to-be-determined dollar amount," he said. "The committee will also be charged with making certain that the purchase is appropriate, meaning said purchase conforms with the needs of the school and at a price the community, as reflected by the composition of the committee, considers reasonable." He intends to propose this plan at the May 4 School Board meeting.
"Our principals and school administrators do a wonderful job with the limited resources they receive; expecting them to be professional procurement specialists in addition to all the other duties they have is hardly something we should burden them with," he said.
Sawyers could not be reached for comment on whether his post was prompted by the announcement of the purchase of a $125,000 Steinway Model D concert grand piano for Charles J. Colgan High School’s Center for the Fine and Performing Arts.
