THE
PROBLEM WITH EANES ISD RECORDKEEPING
...
After year-long delay, Texas
Education Agency finds Eanes ISD
out of compliance with state
records retention laws and Texas
Education Code ... no
consequence issued.
July 29, 2008 - We all talk
about the importance of
accountability in our public
schools. Our students and
teachers are held to high
accountability standards.
However, when districts fail to
comply with Texas Education Code
or the Texas Records Retention
laws, there is no consequence
and the administrators who are
paid well to manage our
districts are not monitored.
How did we learn about the
missing paper trail?
In
October 2004, Keep Eanes
Informed was contacted by
community members with concerns
that our school tax dollars were
funding a professional lobbyist,
Brad Shields. Mr. Shields's
affiliations with Eanes are
numerous; in fact, on his
lobbyist website he advertises
that he is the
"Voice of the Chaps" at the
Westlake High School football
games and a past Eanes ISD
board member. He also
served as
State Representative Turned
Professional Lobbyist Todd
Baxter's campaign manager.
Was he also now the district’s
professional (tax-funded)
lobbyist?
Dianna Pharr contacted Nola
Wellman and the
superintendent denied the
speculation. However,
at the beginning of 2005, the
check register told another
story; the district was paying
Mr. Shield's thousands of
dollars.
Documents indicated that Mr.
Shields
emailed his requests for
payment to the
superintendent and she
signed her approval each
time.
The concern grew when, in
response to public information
requests, backup documentation
for these expenses did not
include agreements, contracts, or
receipts. The paper trail
was absent.
It appeared that receipts
were not maintained according to
law and Brad Shields was paid
without an agreement in place.
Keep Eanes Informed
requested that the Texas
Education Agency (TEA)
investigate.
Approximately one year later,
TEA ruled
that the superintendent's
approval of thousands of dollars
of our education dollars in
expenditures to a professional
lobbyist, Brad Shields, without
a contract in place and without
obtaining receipts for expensive
meals does not comply with the
Texas Education Code or the
state records retention laws. Public school
district administrators have
control of our checkbook and
yet, where is the accountability
or consequence for noncompliance
with important laws?
Even
more troubling, when
Dianna Pharr
requested an investigation
into the apparent expenditures
of school tax dollars by the
Eanes ISD superintendent to a
professional lobbyist without
contracts in place and without
receipts to document the
expenses, Nola Wellman met with
the TEA and for quite some time, the investigation
appeared to be
derailed.
TEA gave Eanes ISD several
"extensions on time" because
apparently Eanes needed more
time to “find” the requested
documents. However, the district's
inability to respond to the
agency’s request for
information further
illustrates the problem with Eanes ISD recordkeeping.
In early 2008, when it
appeared that TEA would
simply not process the
complaint thereby protecting Eanes ISD from
accountability, I wrote to
Robert Scott, TEA
Commissioner and reminded
him the TEA has a
responsibility to monitor
Texas school districts. In
the end, regardless of the
granted time extensions,
Eanes ISD found no
documents, no contracts, and
no receipts.
After a year-long delay,
the
Texas Education Agency
finally issued a written
ruling
Eanes ISD did not comply with
state records retention laws or
the Texas Education Code when
the district paid thousands of dollars to
professional lobbyist (and former Eanes ISD
board member) Brad Shields
without a contract in place and
without obtaining required receipts.
TEA
found that:
-
Eanes ISD is paying
thousands of our
education tax dollars to
private lobbyist (past
school board member)
Brad Shields without
the required contract in
place and this does
not comply with the
Texas Education Code or
reflect
"good
business practices".
-
Although required by
law, Eanes ISD could
not produce receipts to
support the expenses (including
a $489.00 for "two
meetings" that may have
been held at the
Moonshine Bar and Grill)
reimbursed to
Brad Shields by Eanes
ISD. Emails
obtained from a state
representative appear to
indicate that the Eanes
ISD superintendent may
have been invited to
those "two meetings".
-
Eanes ISD has apparently
destroyed or "misplaced" the receipts
for a TASB trip Shields took
while he was an Eanes
ISD board member. Eanes,
not TASB, funded that
costly trip to
Washington, D.C.
When TEA requested those receipts,
even after a year delay, Eanes finally admitted
that the district could
not produce the
receipts.
Accurate recordkeeping must
be in place so that the
public can follow the money.
When Texas school districts
fail to create contracts or
obtain receipts before
reimbursement, there is no
transparency and no
accountability for the
school administrators who
hold the checkbook. Sloppy,
inaccurate record-keeping is
one highly effective barrier
to open government.