Evergreen Public Schools may have violated Washington’s gift of public funds doctrine in its process of demolishing and reconstructing Mountain View High School this past summer.
Whistleblowers who brought the story to light said that equipment and machinery formerly used in the district’s Career and Technical Education program, potentially worth thousands of dollars, was given away by the district and its hired contractors to local shop workers and contractors just before the old building was demolished.
One source referred to what was left over as “a gold mine of machinery.”
An Evergreen spokesperson said via email on Thursday morning that the process they followed handling mirrored how they’ve handled most of their demolition projects and that the district’s attorney is “of the opinion that the process (Evergreen) followed for Mountain View is both typical for Washington school districts and perfectly acceptable.”
State law requires publicly owned property and equipment, such as machine tools owned by a school district, to be formally designated as surplus and sold at auction if it’s no longer to be used.
Public records provided at the request of The Columbian reveal that Evergreen did not maintain a list of shop items to be disposed of as surplus, as it did with other items from the old high school. Instead, the district said the equipment was classified as “legal salvage” and became part of the contractor’s property — in this case, Portland-based Skanska.
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