The Last Word on Fire Alarms

January 15 - Update: New DISD CFO Larry Throm changes the plan... answers coming but no timetable.

This story reminds us of the old joke about the neurosurgeon (brain doctor) who arrives home at 3 A.M. after a grueling day of operating on peoples' brains--only to find his home has flooded from a broken pipe in his downstairs lavatory.

So the neurosurgeon picks up the phone and calls the all-night plumbing service.

About 30 minutes later, the plumber arrives.  Another 30 minutes later, the plumber has the leak stopped and is mopping up.

By 4:30, the plumber has everything fixed and is ready to walk out the door--so he hands the neurosurgeon a bill for $500.

"Five hundred dollars," the neurosurgeon exclaims!  "I'm a neurosurgeon and I don't even make that kind of money!"

"Neither did I when I was a neurosurgeon," replied the plumber!

[Ed Note: Let's start this out by saying, straight up, that there may be nothing to this!  But, as is sometimes the case with DISD, we're having a hard time putting the pieces together.]

The alarm service contract held for several years by TD Industries, the company chaired by DISD Board President Jack Lowe, would seem to be very lucrative.

On August 22, 2008, technicians "110" and "112" from TD Industries arrived at 11:00 to do an annual inspection on the fire alarm system at Harris Elementary School (note: the PDF documents and invoices in this story require Adobe Reader to view them).

Both worked through the lunch hour and left at 1:30 spending 2 1/2 hours at the school.  The bill, according to DISD: $721.00.

Less than a week later technicians "104" and "D130" visited Prairie Creek Elementary School to inspect their fire alarm.  They arrived at 10:30 and left 2 hours later at 12:30.  According to District records, their bill was $875.00.

Nothing on these TD Industries invoices lists anything under their "materials used" section (no parts).  The TD invoices simply give a fixed price for the inspection and list the labor hours.

That being the case, technicians "110" and "112" would appear to have cleared $144.20, apiece, an hour for their job at Harris.

Technicians "140" and "D130" seem to have come away from Prairie Creek making $218.75 an hour.

Technicians "140" and "D130" did not top their previous $219.00-an-hour for their 2 1/2 hour trip ($1,095) to inspect the fire alarm system at L.A. Stemmons Elementary in June.  But they did top the previous $211.50-an-hour they appear to have made on their $1,269 inspection of Lee Elementary's alarm the same month.

There is an overwhelming amount of paperwork associated with TD Industries' contract to perform maintenance and inspections on the fire alarm systems at the Dallas Independent School District.

We were only able to examine some of it (our fault--time constraints) starting around the end of August, 2008, going back only about 3 1/2 months to mid May, looking for things that "jumped out" at us.  To examine all of the records in detail could take weeks--and, based on things like this, might well leave more questions than answers.

But let's continue.

Our brief perusal uncovered examples of a TD crew putting in 7 hours and turning in a bill for $1,849, while another crew put in 4 hours and turned in a bill for $1,645.  Again, the invoices contain no charges for materials.

A TD Industries crew worked mornings for $975, while others worked early afternoons for $915.

Perhaps there is a good explanation for all of this--but we spent the last quarter of 2008 asking for it.

Perhaps there are other records we haven't seen.  Maybe, as others have suggested, there's nothing to any of this.

Maybe $200-an-hour-plus is just the going rate for alarm service in the public sector these days.

Maybe it is just "business-as-usual."

One thing we do know is that DISD has locked horns with us (another story for another day), through the Texas Attorney General, trying to keep us from finding out the extent to which information about TD Industries (and other vendors) is stored in DISD's databases.

But that, folks, is business-as-usual.

UPDATE (15-Jan-2009)

After we published the original story, we obviously had more questions than answers.  The plan, last week, was that we would sit down with contract administrators and get some answers.  This, apparently, didn't sit well with DISD's new CFO Larry Throm.  Instead, Throm is reportedly looking into the issues raised in this story and will get back with us.

No timetable as to when this will occur.

So we filed a request, under the Public Information Act, to look at all TD Industries contracts and supporting materials--something we should have done in the first place.  Hopefully we'll have more on all this in a couple of weeks. 

UPDATE (8-Jan-2009)

DISD is looking to see if there is any more information they can provide on these specific invoices. It probably won't be today or tomorrow, but hopefully we will get hooked up with someone who can explain how the alarm contract works and how a sole vendor keeps winning it year-to-year.

FOR MORE INFORMATION

See TD Industries payouts in our databases here.

Read/Watch WFAA's story: More Questionable Spending Uncovered at DISD.

Read Lori Stahl's story: Dallas ISD Hands Millions in Contracts to Top Leaders' Firms.