Long Island school agencies are scrapping contracts with an election-management company offering software geared to help school districts pass their budgets — by illegally drumming up “yes” votes.
The Boards of Cooperative Educational Services in Nassau County and eastern Suffolk County said they “will be rebidding” the service for 91 school districts.
The move comes a week after The Post reported that taxpayers were forking out hundreds of thousands of dollars for software by Bellport-based Bold Systems.
Many districts paid extra for features that can help generate call lists to urge likely pro-budget voters to get to the polls. The new contract rules forbid “any feature that allows anyone to influence the school-budget voting process,” the boards group said.
BOCES brass said they were unaware of the features touted by Bold until the Post report. But Noel Feustel, a dad in Bayport-Blue Point, obtained BOCES records under the Freedom of Information Law that spelled out what the system could do to profile voters, even breaking down which parents were active in the PTA or athletics.
“They can’t play dumb – or blame the vendor. They were fully knowledgeable about the capabilities,” said Feustel, who first asked district and BOCES officials about the system a year ago.
He called for an investigation by the district attorney or state Attorney General’s office.