An inexperienced firm hired without competition to find Cambridge superintendent candidates – allowed if costs stay below $10,000 – is getting a second payment beyond what has been shared publicly that brings the cost to nearly $50,000, according to a contract and other documents shared with Cambridge Day.
Documents uncovered by a residents’ public records request, posted in an online parents group and confirmed by the city of Cambridge to be authentic, detail that the firm, The Equity Process, was hired by the city under a contract for $40,000 dated Sept. 4 but in effect retroactively starting July 1.
A purchase order report dated Sept. 24 lists the $40,000 payment to The Equity Process as dispatched, but not yet completed.
A spokesperson confirmed for the Cambridge’s Purchasing Department that the newly uncovered contract with The Equity Process is genuine and explained that an exemption, called “sole source,” allows the city to hire an external firm for more than $10,000 without bidding to other companies if their service is unique.
A letter with the heading of “sole source procurement justification” was sent to the purchasing office Aug. 15, identified as coming from the Cambridge Public Schools and the Office of the School Committee, led by mayor E. Denise Simmons and vice chair Caroline Hunter.
https://embed.documentcloud.org/documents/26196820-251024-the-equity-process-contract/?embed=1
Requests for comment were left with Simmons and Hunter on Thursday and Friday by email and phone, but there were no immediate replies from either.
The School Committee as a whole was unaware of the additional expenditure and not consulted on it, member Elizabeth Hudson told Cambridge Day.
“I had no idea. It is also my understanding that other committee members did not know. There was no full committee communication,” Hudson said. No other member responded to requests for comment emailed Thursday.
Challengers see a pattern
The superintendent search, introduced with a first timeline June 18, 2024, and ending Oct. 6 this year with the selection of a candidate, was criticized throughout by district parents, educators and even by committee members as muddled and secretive.
When the nomination period for this year’s city elections ended July 31, Cambridge’s School Committee race had the most candidates on a ballot in two decades: 18 candidates for six seats, with only one incumbent opting not to run. Some candidates have cited a troubled and troubling search as an inspiration to seek office.
With Election Day less than two weeks away, challengers for committee seats were shaking their heads over the disclosure of the additional payment to a firm seen as part of a badly flawed process.
Arjun Jaikumar, district parent and a candidate for the committee, told Cambridge Day that it was “obvious” that the “$9,950 paid to The Equity Process was designed to circumvent a competitive bidding process.”
“It sure looks like that $9,950 was itself a sham, and that the intent was always to pay well beyond the threshold – but without competitive bids,” Jaikumar said.
Caitlin Dube, another district parent and school committee candidate, was similarly alarmed. “A nearly $30,000 variance between what was budgeted and what appears to have been authorized is significant and deeply concerning. But more importantly, it reflects a broader pattern where too many decisions are happening without smart, thoughtful oversight or clear communication,” Dube said.
“Sole source” request
The $40,000 payment appears to come from a professional and technical support line item budgeted for the year at $9,800, leaving a current negative balance of $30,200. The School Committee’s discretionary budget for the year totals less than $100,000. Hudson said such budget overdraws are common for extraordinary expenses such as a superintendent search that do not occur annually. It is unclear if the city has yet paid the additional budgeted amount.
Before the “sole source” payment came a first attempt at finding a search firm in February that produced no winning candidate among three bidders. As a result, committee members voted April 25 to pursue a process for a search firm outside of the competitive bidding process, using the rules that allow direct hiring if a total project cost falls below $10,000.
The city paid $9,950 to The Equity Process of West Bridgewater to conduct the search. The firm submitted paperwork to the district in May for $9,950, and a purchase order for that amount in July, according to the documents from the public records request. Jackie Piques, the district’s director of communications, confirmed that the $9,950 paid the firm for its services through June 30.
The “sole source” request to pay The Equity Process more arrived around two weeks later. It said a missed committee deadline to hire a superintendent was the cause of the additional payment.
https://embed.documentcloud.org/documents/26196821-251024-sole-source-letter/?embed=1
“While the original timeline anticipated the appointment of a superintendent by June 30, 2025, the search process is still in progress. The Equity Process completed the initial scope of services effective June 30, 2025. Subsequently, CPS identified additional needs and requested the Equity Process for a new set of tasks,” the letter says. “Transitioning to a different vendor at this stage would disrupt the continuity of the search, require duplicative efforts and risk the loss of valuable institutional knowledge, candidate relationships and community trust built during the first phase of the process. The Equity Process’ deep understanding of the search’s context, its customized equity-aligned strategies and its proven ability to engage stakeholders effectively make them uniquely qualified to carry the process forward to a successful conclusion.”
Four phases of work
The newly discovered contract details four phases of work to be completed by The Equity Process. Phase 1, which the contract notes had been completed, was to include antibias training and facilitation of a blind review of the 24 initial candidates. The contract does not list the amount of money due The Equity Process for this phase.
The remaining three phases specify costs that add up to $40,000.
Under Phase 2 of the contract, from July 1-16, The Equity Process was to facilitate semifinalist interviews and provide the School Committee with stakeholder consensus of candidates. The contract details a fee estimate of $15,500.
In Phase 3, The Equity Process was to coordinate candidate site visits, conduct background checks and provide equity-driven guidelines for interview processes, with a fee estimate of $14,500.
The final phase that brings the contract to an end Dec. 31 for a final $10,000 includes “onboarding support” for the new superintendent, leadership coaching and School Committee support for a “seamless transition.”
The committee unanimously chose on Oct. 6 to give the permanent role to interim superintendent David Murphy, previously chief operating officer of the district.
The three bids the city received during the previous, open bidding process were submitted from three executive recruitment firms at $36,800, $40,000 and $95,300, placing two rejected firms below the total cost now allocated to The Equity Process. In the 2015 superintendent search, the city signed a $21,500 contract with an experienced search firm, or less than half the compensation for The Equity Process between the completed and pending payments.
New to executive recruitment
Though The Equity Process was founded in 2015 and incorporated in 2021, the firm’s annual reports to the state do not mention until this year that The Equity Process does executive recruitment. The first filing mentioning it was June 17, the month after the firm was hired and before the Cambridge Public Schools payment for $9,950 was completed July 8.
At a September committee roundtable, questions arose about the extent to which background checks were conducted on the candidates. With time running out at the meeting, The Equity Process chief executive Cyndi Weeks Bradley said background checks of the candidates had been sent to the committee by email, though that email could not be found at the meeting.
During the search process, one semifinalist candidate was disqualified in late August when it was revealed that he made public comments comparing the role of a teacher to the role of prostitutes and “pedophile priests.” Just days before the final committee vote, Lourenco Garcia was disclosed to have lost $750,000 in a cryptocurrency scam and to have sued his bank in an attempt to recoup his losses.
The contract states that The Equity Process would not perform Criminal Offender Record Information checks for finalist candidates. Simmons confirmed at a September roundtable that the city had conducted the background checks.
Bradley did not respond to repeated requests for comment.
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This is a massive breach of the public trust. Simmons and Hunter should resign and pay restitution.
You can’t make this up. Simply unbelievable.
Hire a firm that has little experience. The firm gets two outside candidates who had poor qualifications for the position. Agree to pay a certain sum, then pay a much larger sum after the fact.
And no one is going to be held responsible.
Are you listening Denise.
This city is out of control. The City Manager better take a closer look at the assumptions used in the post retirement pension and health plans. The liability is huge and it’s going to come back and bite the city. The thinking on the plans is just plain wrong, similar to the thinking by the City Council that the biotech boom in Cambridge was going to last forever, so spend accordingly.
Meanwhile, a forced mass exodus of the economic middle class because of huge increases in taxes.
The “Understanding Your Taxes” memo from Mr. Huang, showed that the budget in the last 10 years went up by 6.2% a year, doubling in less than 12 years.
I’m just beyond appalled. Simmons and Hunter deserve to be voted out of office entirely. It’s wild to me they were able to do this without the consent of the rest of the Committee, but I guess that’s what happens when the Chair is also the Mayor? We can’t change the charter fast enough.
Side note: surely we don’t need this sketchy company to complete their last 10K of contracted work to transition in the person who already has the job. Is there any way to at least limit that scope and claw back 10K?
Also: Dube’s math is bad (not a great look for a schools candidate) and subtracts the initial 10K paid from the new 40K amount instead of adding it on top. It is a _$40,000_ variance.
This may be unrealistic, but I’m honestly disappointed our City Manager signed off on it.
What a circus! If you had any doubt about the incompetence of the mayor and her buddy Ms. Hunter, this episode should remove it. Let’s vote the school board out (except maybe Ms. Hudson who has been critical all along), make sure the charter is changed so that the new school board can pick its own chair, and, perhaps, move on from Mayor Simmons, whose handling of this whole business has been embarrassing from start to finish.
There’s no rush like walking that thin line between ineptitude and fraud.
The worst part about it all is you know whatever candidate we get through this is likely going to be a bad one. An inexperienced firm over paid due to cronyism whose objective is Equity not Competency. Exactly what we do not need.