Schools in PA, at least in the past, also go screwed on purchasing even the most basic of supplies.
They routinely overpaid for almost all items because of the requirement that they get multiple bids for large purchases and select the lowest bid. Sounds great on paper, but not so good in practice.
One of my dad's friends was in charge of purchasing the basic school supplies that the district used - notebooks, pens, etc. The issue arose when getting bids. He could go to the local office supply house or Kmart and buy those items in bulk. The problem was that those places either didn't do bids, or weren't on the approved bidder list. SMH.
So instead of getting decent notebooks for a few pennies, they paid premium prices for garbage newsprint tablets that mostly ended up in trash. I suspect that the same thing goes on with regard to all purchases today.
