Cambridge voters should be alarmed by revelations that the Cambridge School Committee paid a search firm $40,000 more for the recent superintendent search than had previously been disclosed. The Committee hired The Equity Process (TEP) after rejecting three bids submitted in February from executive search firms. It said at the time TEP would do the work for $9,950.
That offer to TEP drew plenty of questions, because of a state requirement that service contracts over $10,000 must go through a bidding process. This requirement, codified at M.G.L. c. 30B, is rooted in ensuring responsible financial decision-making with taxpayer money. The idea is that when public money needs to be spent, competitive market forces should drive the price down. It also is meant to ensure that government officials do not give plum contracts to their friends unless those friends make the best bid.
The School Committee appears to have tried to game the system to procure TEP’s services, something the legislature anticipated and sought to prevent. The statute states: “No person shall cause or conspire to cause the splitting or division of any procurement … for the purpose of evading a requirement of this chapter.” Giving TEP $9,950 in May 2025 for the search, then coming up with a reason to give it $40,000 a few months later, looks like textbook bid-splitting.
The Committee’s explanation for its actions – that TEP “completed the initial scope of services” and the Committee later “identified additional needs” for the search – does not hold water. Under the law, competitive bidding isn’t required if “the procurement officer determines in writing that only one practicable source for the required supply or service exists.” (Emphasis added.) An August 15, 2025 letter from the School Committee to its own Purchasing Agent stated that the “original timeline” to complete the work “anticipated the appointment of a Superintendent by June 30, 2025.” The School Committee’s letter also stated that transitioning to a different vendor “would disrupt the continuity of the search, require duplicative efforts, and risk the loss of valuable institutional knowledge, candidate relationships, and community trust…”
That suggests the Committee is justifying the extra $40,000 payment by saying it thought the work could be done for $9,950 and the rest of the work was unanticipated.
This is just not credible. There is no plausible argument that the School Committee thought TEP’s work would be finished by June 30 when it hired the firm in May. The Committee’s own minutes on May 14 show that the job posting would close on June 6. There is no conceivable way that the Committee was going to hire a new superintendent within three weeks after closing the public posting. TEP’s own proposal includes more work than could possibly be finished by June 30. And at the start of the bidding process in February, the Committee’s invitation for bids contemplated the selection of a new superintendent by October 15 (the new superintendent was chosen on October 6).
Timeline aside, the idea that the School Committee didn’t know that $40,000 of additional work would be needed beyond the original $9,950 seems laughable. That’s like taking your car to the mechanic to replace your tires and then getting a bill for a new car. It could be defensible if it happened the other way around: $40,000 for the first contract (after a bid process) and $9,950 more to finish the job. But charging $40,000 on top of $9,950 strongly undercuts the School Committee’s statement that the original timeline when hiring TEP contemplated a June 30 completion date.
Maybe none of this matters if TEP was the best firm for the job. But that seems unlikely. In contrast to the three executive search firms that submitted bids, TEP had no executive recruiting experience. Cambridge was its trial run in the executive recruiting business. This is deeply alarming and a strong indication that this was a scheme, exactly the kind of plum giveaway that Chapter 30B is designed to prevent. What possible explanation could there be for rejecting three bids from established firms, and then giving the work to a firm without any executive recruiting experience?
Worse, the School Committee paid more to TEP than it would have paid to two out of the three qualified bidders. It wasn’t much more, but it certainly does not look like we got the best our taxpayer money could buy.
So far, I have seen no Cambridge public official defend this scheme in the open. But voters deserve an accounting. Right now, it sure looks like taxpayer money provided a cushy handout to someone with the right connections.
The writer is an attorney in Cambridge with two children in Cambridge Public Schools.
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Is this legal? It seems like we are just waiting for the lawsuits to start coming.
I would hope someone would care enough to fix this before it further hurts this district. But my guess it they will all shove it under the rug.
Any candidate that actually steps up to do something about this, city council or school committee, will get my vote.