Part II: Governor linked to testing firm

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By Sheena Dooley | Tuesday, January 30, 2007 12:09 AM CST | () comments

Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich had ties to a testing company when the Illinois State Board of Education approved a $45 million contract with it.

Harcourt Assessment Inc. hired John Wyma, a former top aide and campaign director for Blagojevich, in 2004 as a lobbyist in Illinois at the time the company was trying to secure the state’s testing account, which three companies were vying for.

About a month later, state board members unanimously selected Harcourt to handle tests for more than a million students, according to documents from the state Board of Education and the Illinois secretary of state.

Blagojevich’s ties to Wyma created a conflict of interest, a political science professor said. They, however, did not break any laws.

Last year was the first for Harcourt to handle Illinois’ tests. School districts across the state are still waiting for their performance reports, almost 10 months after administering the tests.

Although Blagojevich had no control over the final Harcourt decision, his appointees signed off on the contract, said Dean Clark, a state board member. Also, before the deal was complete, it was sent to the governor’s office for input, according to Illinois State Board of Education documents.

Wyma did not return calls seeking comment.

Rebecca Rausch, a spokeswoman for the governor, said Wyma’s relationship with Blagojevich had no influence over Harcourt landing the contract. He was not with the company long enough to make an impact, she said.

“From our seat, there is not a question,” Rausch said. “This was a decision that the state Board of Education made.”

Wyma took on his position with Harcourt a month before Blagojevich appointed seven new members to the board. That board completed the Harcourt contract, but previous board members made the initial recommendation, Clark and Rausch said.

Clark, who was one of the two members to serve on the board throughout the selection process, said Harcourt’s proposal was the best.

“They had a more complete package in my mind,” Clark said. “We believed the decision was right for the time, and you go forward from there.”

The board was unaware of Wyma’s connections to Blagojevich until after it had made the selection, Clark said. Shortly following the board’s decision, however, questions arose over whether Harcourt and the two other companies that bid on the job – Pearson Educational Measurement and McGraw Hill – should resubmit their proposals because of legislative changes, Clark said.

The governor’s office advised the board that it did not have to reopen the process and should move forward as planned. Board members took that advice and worked to complete the contract with Harcourt, according to documents from the board.

The relationship Blagojevich, Wyma and Harcourt raises questions, a professor said.

“Your visibility is raised by having someone who can open doors and get phone calls returned,” said Kent Redfield, a political science professor at the University of Illinois in Springfield. “It’s both a conflict of interest and the appearance of a conflict of interest.”

Harcourt was one of a string of companies that either worked with Wyma or hired him as a lobbyist as they jockeyed to land multimillion dollar contracts with the state. Most recently, Wyma registered as a lobbyist for GTECH, a gambling company that will likely run keno if Illinois lawmakers approve its use. If that happens, the company would stand to collect substantially more money than the $27 million it collected last year from running Illinois lottery games.

As of January, Wyma was registered as lobbyist in Illinois for 45 companies. Of those, 17 have contributed almost half a million dollars combined in the past four years to Blagojevich’s campaign funds, according to the Illinois State Board of Elections. There is no record of Harcourt or Wyma giving any money to the governor.

“It’s gotten way past the point of ‘Trust me. Even though this person has given me a ton of money, it doesn’t mean anything in terms of the decision-making process,’ ” Redfield said. “It may be true, but no one believes it.”

Sheena Dooley can be contacted at (563)383-2363 or sdooley@qctimes.com.