Hey, what’s the dill?
The city’s Department of Education paid markups as high as 890 percent last year for school food items like parsley, scallions, radishes and green cabbage, a new audit says.
City Comptroller John Liu found that the city’s failure to renegotiate the cost of products under contract with four vendors when prices fluctuate led it to pay $2.32 for parsley that costs 26 cents and $1.03 for scallions that run 12 cents.
The price markups last April topped 100 percent for 3 out of every 10 items that were checked in the audit.
Auditors also found $410,000 that the DOE should recoup from vendors because of overpayments — but expressed the greatest concern over the fact that the city often relied on vendors to self-certify that products were delivered.
“The DOE paid $113 million for which it got receipts, but never looked inside the bags to see if the groceries were there,” said Comptroller’s Office spokesman Matthew Sweeney.
A DOE spokeswoman said they hadn’t been provided the spreadsheet detailing the cost inflations but that a quick review found a host of inaccuracies.
“Half of the products on the spreadsheet we no longer purchase,” she said.
DOE officials noted that the overpayments were a small percentage of the annual $113 million food budget, but they agreed that some of the findings provided “opportunities to further improve our operations.”
Liu’s auditors responded that the overpayments were identified in just a limited review of the fiscal year 2010 purchases.