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Elizabeth reported last week about Comptroller William Thompson’s claim that the Department of Education overspent on some of its contracts with external vendors. At the time, the department argued that Thompson’s analysis overstated the difference between projected and actual costs, sometimes “wildly.”

In a strongly worded letter of his own sent to Thompson this weekend, Klein elaborated on the department’s defense, saying that the comptroller disregarded information about how the department structures contracts and pays for services when he put together his report. One example of the “distortions and misrepresentations” in Thompson’s claims, Klein wrote, was that a contract with the Xerox Corporation had cost the city 6700 percent more than it was supposed to:

The Xerox contract was actually registered for $31 million. We originally registered the contract for $20 million in 2002, and later extended it twice, once by $10 million and a second time by $1 million. It appears that you cite the amount of this last extension as if it were the entire registration amount. 

Klein’s entire letter to Thompson is posted after the jump. (more…)