Washington, D.C.’s Largest Public School System Agrees to Pay $19 Million to Settle Whistleblower Lawsuit

 

Washington, D.C.’s largest public school system food vendor has agreed to pay $19 million to settle a lawsuit alleging that the company overcharged the District and mismanaged the school meals programs. According to the suit, food often arrived at schools late, and were often spoiled or in short supply.

A former director of food services for D.C.’s Public Schools (DCPS) filed the lawsuit against Chartwells and Thompson Hospitality. The tipster served as executive director of the school system’s Office of Food and Nutritional Services from 2010 until he was fired in early 2013. Chartwells and the Office of Food and Nutritional Services formed a joint venture that provided food services for schools in D.C. beginning in 2008. The whistleblower’s suit prompted an investigation and then a complaint from the District’s attorney general’s office, according to The Washington Post (The Post).

“Chartwells has quite reasonably acknowledged and addressed mistakes it made in administering the contract to provide food and food services to DCPS,” Attorney General Karl A. Racine said in a statement Friday that was obtained by The Post. “It is important to ensure that contractors who receive District funds are held accountable for fulfilling their obligations under the contracts, and today’s settlement does just that.”

Last year, the whistleblower settled a separate lawsuit with the school system for $450,000. In the suit, the man alleged that he was fired for shedding light on how the system mismanaged the contract.

“The issue of private food vendors prioritizing profits over the well-being of students is a national concern,” the tipster said. “I urge all school districts using private food vendors to examine their contracts and the performance of those vendors.”

Owen Donnelly, a spokesman for Chartwells, said in an e-mail to The Post that the company “denies any wrongdoing and has agreed to resolve the issues so that focus continues to be on nourishing the bodies, minds and spirits of students to pave the way for a lifetime of success and well-being.”

According to Donnelly, the problems at DCPS were the result of cost overruns and “related reconciliations.”

“In our seven years at D.C. Public Schools, we have significantly increased the quality of food service while saving the District millions of dollars,” he told The Post.

Chartwells had encountered problems in other parts of the country. In 2012, Chartwells’s parent company, Compass Group USA, paid $18 million to settle allegations by New York’s attorney general that more than three dozen school districts were overcharged by the company when it failed to extend discounts required by their contracts. Then, last fall, students at a Connecticut high school participated in a well-publicized boycott over the quality of the food the company provided, The Post reported.

In settling the DCPS lawsuit, Chartwells agreed to pay $14 million in credits and payments to the school system and committed to pay an additional $5 million in philanthropic support for the schools. Part of that sum included $4 million to the D.C. Public Education Fund for “innovative programs” and $1 million to a number of nonprofit organizations that promote literacy and provide mentors, college scholarships and academic enrichment, according to The Post.

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