CISD sat on a Wall, CISD had a great Fall

July 20, 2008
by Harold Gentry

………and all the kings horses and all the kings men, couldn’t put CISD back together again.
The biggest thing affecting public school funding and education of Texas children today is the nonexistence of accountability for misdeeds by central office administrators.

Contracts written by attorneys contain all sorts of loopholes for their client just in case he/she should ever be required to be held accountable for their actions. This is a major factor promoting continued abuse of funds.

In my opinion, today’s board members are not concerned with becoming better and more effective members, but instead view their position as a political stepping stone or a throne of power to influence other situations within the community.

The taxpayers of Cleburne have endured not only 16 months of denial and deception by CISD central office administration that completely fooled most of the community, but also a deaf and blind school board that supposedly was elected to represents all of us. Two board members need to resign.

CISD is guilty of misuse and mismanagement of federal funds from 2002-2006 and there can be no denial of the facts. But still after a scalding final report from the Texas Education Agency Cleburne, school district officials continue to place the blame anywhere but on themselves. Instead they cite faulty policies and procedures and a past administration. CISD central office administration is still not taking full responsibility for their actions, while the board blames their lax oversight on past administrations.

The school district’s public relations director spews out the idea that they have instituted new federal fund policies and procedures to ensure that this will never happen again. Has everything really been corrected? How many of you have taken the time to personally examine the 2006-2008 accounting files to verify those supposedly instituted safeguards? Most “sheeple” haven’t because they just trust what they are being told. When you do, you will find that none of the misuse stopped completely until the arrival of Dr. James Warlick and Dr. Ronny Beard.

Taxpayers, hopefully you have learned from your experience. You can’t believe everything you are told. Look and judge for yourself.

Unfortunately this is just the beginning of a long journey that will affect our district for years. Further TEA-mandated audits will expose more misuse and you can expect the repayment to spiral upwards. Sanctions imposed under TEC 39.131 against our district can also require a conservator and possibly a board of managers stripping away the powers of leadership simply because CISD has demonstrated they can not be trusted to properly govern themselves. TEA divisions of Financial Audits, Governance and General Inquiries, Formula Grants and the Discretionary Grants Administration will also take administrative and enforcement action pursuant to 34 CFR 80.12 and 34 CFR 80.43(a) against CISD. And finally, after their review of the TEA final report, the Office of the Inspector General at the Department of Education in Washington, D.C. will take whatever appropriate action is deemed necessary. It’s not over with just a simple repayment of $362,304.31.

TEA has told Dr. Warlick and Dr. Beard that this is the result of the district not listening to their constituents. Dr. Warlick and Dr. Beard are good honest men trying to straighten out a mess they did not make.

I hope now the district and the board realize that disrespecting the majority vote of the taxpayers was a fatal mistake.