Report: Boston Public Schools violated contracting rules, wasted $857,000 in taxpayer money 

The Massachusetts inspector general’s office has chastised Boston Public Schools (BPS) for improper vendor procedures in a recent report, citing “poor department oversight and informal vendor arrangements” that cost taxpayers $857,000, according to WBUR News.

“There’s wasted money,” concluded Massachusetts Inspector General Jeffrey Shapiro. “You probably have at least $200,000 that could have gone to programs that more directly affect students.”

Although investigators did not uncover “evidence of fraudulent activity or criminal conduct,” these practices still violated the state’s procurement law, the news article observed.

“The scathing report … found that school employees repeatedly hired vendors without valid contracts or the required competitive bidding, then devised a workaround to pay them later. The report examined conduct from 2018 through 2024.”

Using mark-ups, companies as middlemen

One example of improper procedures involved shipping charges, where a $96 invoice for four books listed a $211 shipping charge – more than double the price of the books.

“These four books were shipped from Multicultural Book World to the BPS administrative offices, both in Roxbury, and three blocks apart,” the report explained.

Another mark-up cost at least $77,000 in additional fees for the district, which has cut hundreds of staffing positions to address a $53 million budget shortfall in February, according to another WBUR report.

However, the $77,000 mark-up “passed through the district’s payment process without being flagged by the employees who reviewed invoices or their managers, who should have maintained adequate oversight,” according to the article.

“Shapiro said the findings were serious and so ‘unusual’ that he told BPS to halt payments on vendor contracts for non-essential goods and services for 10 business days.”

Meanwhile, a handful of companies routinely received payments from the district, essentially acting “as middlemen to pay other vendors,” the article explained.

The district has followed Shapiro’s recommendation to pause payments for 10 days, saying in a statement that it has changed its business practices and hired new personnel.

However, critics such as Boston City Councilor Erin Murphy called on School Superintendent Mary Skipper to explain how such practices began in the first place.

“It wasn’t just one incident, it had to have been several incidents happening time and time again,” she said. “It almost seems like it’s just a way they’re doing business.”

‘The buck stops here’

As previously reported by Heartlander News, the district reached its highest-ever four-year graduation rate in March – only after removing a previous statewide testing standard to graduate.

“The 2025 graduating class was the state’s first to not be required to pass the Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System, or the MCAS, in order to graduate,” Boston.com reported, noting the new framework included projects, financial literacy lessons, and end-of-course tests instead.

Critics of these new testing requirements argue they are contributing to poorer academic outcomes among college students, who increasingly need remedial courses as incoming freshmen.

“Who wants to tell a student they have been lied to for years and that the buck stops here?” lamented Naomi Schaefer Riley, senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. “The real compassion, though, lies in telling our young people the truth.”