WASHINGTON — Earlier this month, the largest food vendor in the D.C. school system agreed to pay $19 million in a suit charging that it mismanaged the program and overcharged the District. Now the D.C. Council is poised to rehire the vendor at a cost of $32 million.
Chartwells and Thompson Hospitality agreed to pay the money June 5 as part of a whistle-blower lawsuit in which a former school-system official charged that the company overcharged the District, used spoiled food and delivered food late, The Washington Post reports.
The current contract expires in 2017, but the District’s annual chance to challenge the contract ends Tuesday. The Post reports that no one on the council has challenged the renewal.
Council member David Grosso, D-At Large, tells The Post that not renewing the contract would “put the city in a really bad spot” with the summer food program already underway. He says an oversight hearing will be held in September.
Council member Mary Cheh, D-Ward 3, called for an audit of the Chartwells-Thompson contract when the settlement of the suit was announced, The Post says.
The suit came about when Jeffrey Mills, executive director of the school system’s Office of Food and Nutritional Services from 2010 until he was fired in early 2013, claimed he was fired by the District because he was warning about problems with the contract. The Post says Mills settled a separate suit with the school system for $450,000; it’s not known how much of the $19 million he’ll get.
The District first signed a contract with Chartwells-Thompson in 2008. Food costs went up, The Post reports, and in 2012 Chartwells’ parent company paid $18 million in a similar suit in New York. But the District re-signed with Chartwells in 2012.
