Printing of school newsletter raises questions with union

By Bill Donovan
Staff Writer

GALLUP — The local teacher's union is questioning a contract the Gallup-McKinley School District has with a local newspaper.

Officials for the McKinley Federation of United School Employees say a contract signed last August between the school district and the Gallup Herald may be illegal.

The union is questioning a proposal that the school district approved for the printing of "The Vision," a publication the district puts out three times a year: at beginning of the school year, the beginning of the second semester and at the end of the second semester.

The publication, which had its first issue last August, provides news of the school district, ranging from the meal programs to various strategies the district has to improve the quality of education.

It is written by school officials and distributed by the school district. But the printing has been turned over to the Herald.

MCFUSE officials obtained, through a public document request, a copy of what is called a Plan-Do-Study-Act form, which is now used by the district to evaluate programs.

One line of the PDSA form asked if it would require any additional fiscal resources and the answer was no.

Freebie
This answer puzzled MCFUSE officials who wondered how subcontracting the printing of the 12-page tabloid to the Herald would not cost the district anything and wondered if the answer was done in this way to confuse or even deceive members of the county school board.

"It simply did not make sense that the Gallup Herald could do the job at the same cost as the district's print shop," a union statement said.

When the union sent in a request for an explanation to the district, the response came back "The District Newsletter dated August, 2006, was prepared at no cost to the District; no payment was made to the Gallup Herald."

The union then asked why this project was not put out for competitive bid, allowing other papers, such as The Independent or The Journey, to submit a bid.

The school district answered that by pointing out that because there was no cost to the district in the printing of the newsletter, no competitive bid was necessary.

"No cost, no bid," said John Samford, assistant superintendent for the district for finance.

He went on to explain that "nothing is free."

The deal with the Herald, he said, allows the Herald to put ads in the publication and all of the ad revenue stays with the Herald.

The August issue contained 11 ads, including full-pages for Wal-Mart and Gurley Motors.

Checkered past
The Herald has been sued by two of its former printers who claimed that the paper did not pay them for printing jobs, but it is unknown if the printing of The Vision was part of these two lawsuits.

Under the agreement, the Herald provided the district with 22,175 copies of the August issue, which was mailed out by the district. Samford said the district acquired a mailing list that included all the addresses for people in the county and every one should have gotten a copy of it in late August or early September.

The agreement also required the Herald to insert the paper in one of its editions, but Samford said he was not sure if that was done since he does not read the paper. He added that the Herald was not required to furnish proof to the district that The Vision had been inserted in the paper.

A press release from the teacher's union suggested that the reason why there was no competitive bids was simple: The district was rewarding the Herald "for only printing good news about the district and avoiding any news the district would find embarrassing."

The release pointed out that the district has been publicly critical of The Independent "for printing stories that do not always show the district in a favorable light."

The union also pointed out that the Herald's publisher, Joe Kolb, also received "free or near free" use of the Gallup Junior High gymnasium last year when he owned the Gallup Talons, the area's semi-pro basketball team.

Saving money
Kolb said he was the one who approached the district last August with the idea of changing the format and working with the Herald on it. By doing it, he said, the district saved a lot of money.

He also pointed out that as part of the PDSA process, it was reviewed and evaluated by a number of people within the school district and all of them endorsed it.

As for the union suggestion that his paper was giving favorable treatment to the district because of the financial arrangement, Kolb said that was nonsense.

"We support the school district," he said, but if there is something that is negative going on within the district, "we will report it."

He was critical of the union's posturing about his contract with the district, saying the criticism was "petty" and an example of the type of unsubstantiated and misleading charges that the union continues to bring up against the school district.

Calling the teacher's union "ineffective," he said he questioned the reliability of anything the union put out as long as it refuses to tell how many members it has and just how much support it has among the teachers.

"I know a lot of teachers and many of them don't even know that there is a union here," he said.