Education Matters US

Friends,

HB 261 passed today with the giant loophole of allowing school districts to give energy contracts to “consortium” and “consortia” without any public bidding by requiring the consortium to bid only after that consortium has been given the contract:

The huge problem, of course, is that by allowing this to occur there is no limit on how much that consortium can mark up the prices charged to school districts by tacking on its fees after acquiring the electricity or natural gas to resell to the school districts. In short, this dangerous piece of legislation would protect the entire no-bid business model, like the IEC’s, under the guise of requiring bidding at the consortium level. But unless you have a process that actually compares the prices to be charged by the consortiums to the school districts against what the competitors of those consortiums would charge, there is no way of knowing you are saving taxpayers money.

I strongly urge you to call/e-mail our state senators and the Governor and voice your opposition to any legislation that allows a consortium to escape competition and the lower end prices charged to consumers like school systems that competition creates.