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Consultant Binge=5 days - $31,300!

March 16, 2004

When all nine consultants were working it cost the taxpayers $14.34 a MINUTE. Alone, they charged city taxpayers an average of $1.59 per MINUTE for a per day average cost of $763. This "Content Institutes" happened July 22-26, 2002. At least that's what the internal document stated that was attached to the undated bill.

Barbara Moore Williams, a $1,500 per day consultant, submitted the bill to Ric Curry via EMAIL. binge bill

Barbara Moore Williams, Philadelphia, PA 5 days @1,500= 7500

Gwendolyn Sebastian Hill, Philadelphia, PA 3 days @ $900= 2,700

Thelma J. Miller, Willingboro, NJ, 5 days @$700= 3,500

Laverne Wiley, Balja Cynwyd, PA 5 days @$700= 3,500

Kathleen Williams, Philadelphia, PA 5 days @$700= 3,500

Sharon Scott 3 days @$700= 2,100

Marilyn D. Conyers, Mt. Laurel, NJ 5 days @700= 3,500

Latanya Miller, Philadelphia, PA 5 days @500= 2500

Donna Smith, Philadelphia, PA 5 days @500= 2,500

The page included their home address.

Some interesting facts about this list of 9 consultants - All but two of them show up on a Philadelphia School Districts website - all on one page - (Click here to view)

This Philadelphia team included two woman, each of whom used one name in Lancaster and a different name on the Philly school website. Sharon Scott, who was paid $2,100 for her three days in Lancaster is known as Sharon Whiting in Philly.

Marilyn D. Conyers, who took home $3,500 for five days, is known as M. Diane Conyers and works in Ric Curry's former haunt - the Bartram Cluster. For Conyers, it was the second year in a row that she participated in the "Content Institute". The previous year, Conyers billed Lancaster taxpayers $1,000 a day with an invoice #1 for a company called DIMARCON, INC. (get it? DIane MArilyn CONyers) which listed her home address (click to see entire invoice). A search for any such corporation record proved fruitless. Conyers, who turns 53 on April 2, billed Lancaster taxpayers a total of $8,400.

So what did taxpayers get for this $31,300 consultant binge? No one in authority is asking questions about what taxpayers got for this expenditure. But then neither were questions asked when the school board voted to approve a contract with some of the same consultants in early February.

This month, two of the consultants, Barbara Moore Williams and Thelma Miller, were back in town for "Literacy Circle" training.