Consultant’s Add-On Charges Included Session

With Hart, Buzzi, Bienkowski

By John Voket

Compared to its nearly $70 million annual budget, the $34,100 already committed for public relations, communications, and crisis response consulting services being provided to the Newtown school district and certain members of its staff and Board of Education may seem insignificant.

But it was the manner in which Baldwin Media Marketing and the expertise of former television anchorwoman and broadcaster Ann Baldwin was retained that continues to frustrate Debbie Leidlein, the newly elected chairman of the school board.

While the $2,400 monthly retainer was negotiated separately with the Connecticut Association of Boards of Education (CABE) — the agency through which Baldwin provides communications services to Newtown and other school systems as well as CABE itself — two additional charges totaling $5,300 initially appeared to raise the total amount committed above the minimum requiring both school board approval and the contract for those services to be put out to bid.

But Ms Leidlein said December 14 that because of the way Superintendent Janet Robinson structured the contract and supplemental charges, each amount is viewed as separate under the board’s and district’s policies regarding bidding and board authorization.

“It appears the work has been crafted in a way that would not require the superintendent to get board approval, which is disappointing — purposely circumventing the system put in place so the board could be accountable for the spending of taxpayers’ money,” Ms Leidlein said. “Going forward we’d like to have policies in place that will allow the board more supervision of the handling of taxpayer money.”

In addition to the monthly retainer, which Ms Baldwin said provided the district with about 20 hours or more of consulting per month, Baldwin Media also received $3,800 for “media services” and $1,500 for video shooting and production.

After several communications with the district office, which could not provide any record of what the $3,800 in “media services” was for, Ms Baldwin contacted The Newtown Bee to clarify.

In an e-mail and follow-up phone call, Ms Baldwin stated that part of the $3,800 was used to provide coaching to former school board chairman William Hart, board member Andrew Buzzi, and district business manager Ronald Bienkowski.

Ms Baldwin said while she met in person with Mr Hart and Mr Bienkowski, Mr Buzzi joined in the session by phone. She said part of that extra $3,800 charge included several follow-up calls and e-mails to the officials.

“I initially met with Bill Hart and two other board members who asked me to assist them in improving communications,” Ms Baldwin wrote in an e-mail. “I spent the month of June conducting an internal audit of existing communications followed by recommendations for moving forward.”

In the e-mail, she referred to the business manager as a board member instead of as an employee of the Board of Education.

Hart: Never Coached

A call to Mr Bienkowski regarding the scope of the coaching were not immediately returned, and Mr Buzzi no longer serves on the school board. But Mr Hart responded to a query by e-mail, taking issue with the “coaching” terminology.

“I was never at a ‘coaching’ session, and I would be surprised if Ann used that term,” Mr Hart said, although he also stated that “possible methods for communication were discussed” during that session.

“As I have described earlier, there has been on on-going recognition by the board of the need for the district to improve communications with the community, as stated in the strategic plan, by the strategic plan communications action team, and in the board’s goals for the past several years,” Mr Hart said. “Given the importance of the transportation contract, it was clear that we had a responsibility to get information to the people about it.

“I recommended to Janet [Robinson] that she seek expert help in communicating that information,” Mr Hart continued. “When Janet engaged Ann through CABE, I did have a meeting with her, Ann, Andy Buzzi (who attended by phone) and I believe Ron Bienkowski where possible methods for communication were discussed, including videotaping all our board meetings, the Saturday 8/20 presentation by the bidders, and the Channel 21 show. I know that Ann subsequently attended some board meetings and may have had discussions with other board members.”

During that consulting session Ms Baldwin said she advised the trio of officials, in part, on the owner-operators issue that was generating dozens of angry letters to The Bee, as well as some emotional commentary on social networking sites, including a Facebook page set up expressly for the owner-operators and their supporters.

Social Media Concerns

Dr Robinson defended her contracting Ms Baldwin’s services under questioning at the most recent school board meeting, stating several times that she needed assistance dealing with misinformation that was being promulgated on social networking sites.

Ms Baldwin said the transportation issues were just one of a number of issues discussed during that group meeting. “We didn’t come up with a game plan during that meeting,” Ms Baldwin said.

Ms Baldwin said that every time she entertains a new client, she works closely with them to identify communications issues that may be strong or lacking.

“We look at what the client has in place, what they are doing, what’s working and what’s not,” she said. In Newtown’s case, under the $3,800 charge prior to her being contracted on a monthly minimum retainer, Ms Baldwin said she also looked at various programs in the district that could be highlighted in media reports, as well as meeting with district officials to make recommendations.

“June was a really labor-intensive effort,” Ms Baldwin said. “But everything else we’ve done, except for the video services, was under the retainer.”

The media consultant said that while the retainer provides for both on-call services to help the district respond to crises, and all other consultation or hands-on assistance, there may be other situations where she would bill the district above and beyond the retainer.

“It’s based on a minimum number of hours, but I always put in more hours that are billed,” Ms Baldwin said. “But say they wanted to revise the [district] website or something like that — that would be billed separately.”

Ms Baldwin said some of the other work she is doing under the retainer included conducting a two-hour professional development workshop with the district leadership team on December 9, and working in the local cable studios with Newtown students who were about to film their first production for the district’s public access Channel 12.