Dena Levitz, The Examiner
2008-05-20 07:00:00.0
Current rank: Not ranked

WASHINGTON -

D.C. officials are poised to renew a $14.6 million school security contract with a private firm that’s come under fire for bouncing checks to its employees and was rated at high risk of bankruptcy in 2005.

District-based Hawk One started handling security for the city’s 50,000-student school system in 2005 after the council debated the company’s financial stability.

Earlier this month, council Chairman Vincent Gray, at the request of the mayor, presented to council members a memorandum listing the one-year contract with Hawk One, with an option for a second year, among contracts before the council for “passive approval.” According to the memo, the proposed contract will automatically be approved Thursday unless a council member expresses opposition.

Phone calls to Tim Thornton, head of school security for Hawk One, were not returned Monday.

According to published reports, the company was rated at high risk for bankruptcy and late payments in 2005 by the credit information firm Dun & Bradstreet.

Last year Hawk One also was reportedly involved in a payroll error that left the company temporarily unable to pay a number of its workers on time.

The large price tag the city doles out to a private company is in itself worrisome and nearly unprecedented nationally, said Ken Trump, president of consulting firm National School Safety and Security Services.

It’s rare for urban school systems to rely as heavily on private school security as the District does, said Trump. Research is spotty as far as the school-security method that is most effective in combating crime, but evidence shows there are definite drawbacks to privatization, he told The Examiner.

“It’s a higher-risk model,” he said. “Part of the problem is that the client [the city] has limited control over the quality of people they get, the training, the supervision.”

The proposed contract for next school year is about equal to the previous contract, but closings will leave Hawk One with 23 fewer school buildings to watch over in the fall.

The contract would go into effect June 1.

dlevitz@dcexaminer.com