Editorial: Let book suppliers compete

Thursday, Feb. 13, 2003 | 8:59 a.m.

A Texas company that specializes in the storage and delivery of school textbooks is asking a valid question of Nevada and the Clark County School District. DDS, a book depository near Dallas, is inquiring about Nevada's nearly exclusive arrangement with a depository in Utah. The state's "master price agreement" for textbooks must be signed by publishers whose books have been chosen for use by the state Board of Education. Until recently the agreement required publishers to use Mountain State School Book Depository, about 20 miles north of Salt Lake City. After DDS complained, the state simply left it up to the purchasing school districts to choose a depository. Clark County, every time, requires publishers to use Mountain State, which last year charged the district $16 million for its services.

Depositories are middlemen between publishers and school districts. Because direct shipping from the publishers would be prohibitively expensive, depositories receive and store vast quantities of books and then deliver them to individual districts. In a letter to the Clark County School District, DDS has stated that Nevada's method of dictating to the publishers what depository to use has no basis in law. It has threatened to file a lawsuit unless publishers are allowed to choose the depository.

The school district argues that its working relationship with Mountain State is convenient and cost-effective. That may be, but it's led to one firm having a lock on the business. An improvement would be for the district to allow publishers to choose any depository in Nevada or bordering state whose delivery charges would be equal to or less than what the district is now paying. This would remove any appearance of impropriety.