How bad is it at EPISD?

May 31, 2014

Spending at the EPISD has come to a stop according to what I am hearing.

Their financial troubles must be more immediate and serious than what we have been told.

District employees tell us that nothing is being bought except by the board.

Stories are circulating about them taking parts from one device to fix another.

Evidently vendors are not being called, even if it is for warranty work.

If it is true that they are doing their own roof work and thus voiding the manufacturer warranties then they are being short sighted to say the least.

We deserve better

Brutus

 

6 Comments | El Paso Independent School District | Permalink
Posted by Brutus

EPISD central office

May 30, 2014

It appears that plans are in place to kick the EPISD central office off of the land that it leased from the city 50 years ago.

Building a new facility will cost us $40 million according to the folks at the district.  Remember that our city’s chief financial officer is on the board of managers.  If she had anything to do with the $40 million estimate I would have to guess that we are in for a bigger shock than that.

I overheard a local businessman talking about this the other day.  He suggested that the district look for buildings in one of our industrial parks that could be remodeled.  Several big operations have closed down in recent years.  They have left big buildings that should  be cheaper to buy and remodel than building a facility from scratch.

Then again the taxpayers should ask the city to leave the district on the land it currently occupies and thus save us the expense.

That probably would get in the way of someone’s plan to profit from the land.

We deserve better

Brutus

10 Comments | City government, El Paso Independent School District | Permalink
Posted by Brutus

Resume enhancement?

May 28, 2014

According to a recent press release the chief financial officer of our city government is now a member of the board of the United Way of El Paso.

Day job

Her day job is to be the chief financial officer of our city.  We are facing budget cuts because of revenue shortages.  We have witnessed wildly inaccurate cost estimates relating to the demolition of city hall and also to the building of the ball park.   It would be nice if she would take the time to give us accurate figures.

She is a member of our fire and police pension board.  Some say that the funding shortfall over there is in excess of $200 million.

Board of managers

She is also one of five people appointed by the state to be on the board of managers of EPISD.  We are told that there is a $17 million revenue shortfall and that teachers will have to be fired.  It would be nice if she could take the time to provide us with a solution other than having the budget axe fall only on the teachers.  There must be some other savings that can be achieved.

Familiar pattern

It seems that we are seeing financial problems with organizations that she has a senior role in.  There was a time when people saw to it that they had one job under control before they undertook another.

We deserve better

Brutus

4 Comments | Ball park, City government, El Paso Independent School District | Permalink
Posted by Brutus

Washington Post advertising

May 26, 2014

The May 20,2014 agenda of the EPISD board of managers has another example of what goes on in many of our local governmental purchasing units.

Item E8 on the consent agenda seeks approval of contracts for structured cabling products and services.  They want to make the purchase through a buy board, The Allied States Cooperative.

A visit to the cooperative’s web site  tells us that they are a “national government purchasing cooperative”.

Local schools

The EPISD agenda item explains that the purchases will be for data wiring of local schools, including a new elementary school.

EPISD staff has not even published the specifications yet.  They want permission to hire one of the four local firms each time they are ready to start a project.  Formal bidding will not be used.  They want to ask the four   “to provide competitive quotes based on walk-throughs conducted for each project”.

Ignoring the kinds of mischief that situation could foster let’s focus on how they (the cooperative) advertised their “bid”.

They published their announcements in the “Washington Post”.  No kidding.

National cooperative

Allied States tells us that they are a national contracting organization.

Maybe they are.

Reviewing their web site you will see that they are part of our local Region 19 Education Service Center.  They offer contract administration so that government organizations across the county can avoid competitive bidding and use their buy board.

All of the contact information for Allied States points us to employees of Region 19 here in El Paso.

Restrictive

Why would our local education service center advertise this in the Washington Post?  Could it be that they did not want other local vendors to know about the opportunity?  Did they reach out and inform their favored few?

We deserve better

Brutus

 

4 Comments | El Paso Independent School District | Permalink
Posted by Brutus

More trouble brewing at EPISD

May 21, 2014

Look for the controversy at EPISD to become more public and more heated.

Word on the street is that the district is playing dirty tricks with personnel in order to save money.

They need to be careful.  District employees deserve to be treated fairly and the board should not be saying one thing in public and doing something else in private.

If cuts need to be made then so be it.

Teachers are feeling that they are bearing the brunt of the process and that the administration is not.

This board is failing to instill confidence in the citizens and that was one of the primary reasons given for overriding the voters with the appointed board.

We deserve better

Brutus

 

3 Comments | El Paso Independent School District | Permalink
Posted by Brutus

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