According to an article in WRAL, lawmakers have included millions of dollars in no-bid contracts within recent state budgets. These contracts compel agencies like the Department of Public Instruction to work with unproven and largely unaccountable businesses.

One, MyScholar, has no statewide contracts except in North Carolina. The company is based in Missouri. The organization has already been paid $1.5 million in full and has yet to go live. Despite this, the most recent state budget “reserved up to $5 million more” for the project.

These no-bid projects force the hands of agencies like DPI who in some instances would not have agreed to partner with the organizations, as was the case with Failure Free Reading. A DPI spokeswoman said that the NCGA “selected a vendor without input from the education experts at NCDPI.”

The process as it exists leads to unprepared companies receiving sweetheart deals with the state, all without proper oversight, scrutiny, and even understanding of what agencies like DPI need from vendors.

“It is a disservice both to North Carolina taxpayers and our students when untested companies receive no-bid contracts from the state,” House Democratic Leader Robert Reives said. “We need to introduce new measures that ensure proper oversight of these contracts, such as approval from the Council of State and, after approval, deliberate oversight from the General Assembly and independent agencies like the Office of the State Auditor.”