elpasospeak

KFOX TV aired a segment the other day that gives us a pretty clear idea where we are at EPISD.

According to the current president of the non-elected board of managers:

“We didn’t have time to peel back the onion and get in there and look at the numbers like we’ve been doing for the last several months, and they spent more than $73,000 protesting us,” Margo said. “I frankly think if they were honorable people, they’d reimburse the district because that looked like they did it for their own egos.”

Honorable?  Egos?

Then again maybe it takes one to know one.

Quoting further from the KFOX segment:

In response to Margo’s statements, Castanon-Williams sent KFOX14 the following statement:

“The Board of Managers, under Mr. Margo’s leadership, has been in place for over a year. They need to take responsibility for their gross mismanagement of this school district.  This unelected Board of Managers has completely squandered and mishandled the district’s money from day one: 1) They hired a superintendent at an insane salary of $285,000 a year–which is a salary that is more than the salary of our Vice President of the United States, Joseph Biden, who earns $230,700 a year. In fact, Superintendent Cabrera’s salary exceeds the salaries of every U.S. representative and senator in Washington, D.C., including every member of the White House staff.  This salary is not one that this school district can afford.

2) They eliminated more than 130 teaching positions for alleged budgetary shortfalls; but hired several expensive administrators to help the new superintendent at central office and across the district, while he learns how to do his job on the job, because he has never been a superintendent before.

3)  They unethically reallocated to the Westside a substantial part of the $54 million of the 2007 bond money that was promised to Northeast El Paso for a new high school, so that they could build a new football stadium on the Westside at Franklin High School this year.  As a result, the substantial needs of the schools in Northeast El Paso have been minimized and will go unmet.

Furthermore, there is no legal authority for this Managing Board to remain in place after an election took place in May 2013 following their appointment.  In short, their continued presence in place of a newly elected board of trustees may well be illegal.

Under the elected Williams, Dodge, & Hughes Board, in spite of huge state budget cuts that Mr. Margo voted for as State Representative, the district had a balanced budget every year, saved money out of each budget which was put into the fund balance (savings account) for emergencies resulting in $87 million that the Board of Managers inherited from the elected school board of trustees. We received the prestigious Texas Comptroller Leadership Circle Gold Member award for outstanding fiscal management three years in a row, we kept all teachers on the job, and gave all employees substantial salary increases they well deserved.

As the elected board members, we continue to support the right of the people to have their elected leaders represent them, especially given the disastrous performance of the Board of Managers that is not elected so it does not represent the people of this community.  One Managing Board member, Dr. Castleberry, has never lived in El Paso and may be flying into El Paso at the school district’s expense for board and workshop meetings.  Who is paying for her flight and hotel expenses? Another Managing Board member, Dr. Blanca Enriquez, does not live in the school district at all. This Board of Managers was appointed by and is accountable only to a Commissioner in Austin with his own agenda.”

Margo sent KFOX14 his own statement in response.

“Cabrera’s  compensation package is less than Garcia’s.  Garcia had a base salary of $280,314 plus business expenses, a $2,000 per month car allowance, $1,000 for telephone and internet, liberal vacation, a $1 million life insurance policy, pension contributions, separate annuity, and a performance bonus on district test scores that I’m told equated to an additional $54,000 his last year, Cabrera does not have this,” Margo said.

“Teaching positions were reduced through attrition and retirements.  There have been no layoffs.  The district is merely matching the correct ratio of teachers to students as prior year budgets overestimated incorrectly ADA (average daily attendance) which determines our state revenues to district.  It was a case of poor oversight by prior trustees. 2010-11, 2011-12, 2012-13, and 2014-15 have a projected drop in enrollment of 3,377 costing somewhere in excess of $18 million to EPISD,” he said.

“Bond funds were repurposed for classroom additions and other related projects after several public meetings conducted by the Bond Oversight Committee and their approval. The Committee was presented with demographic data that showed a new northeast high school would not be needed for several years and we had more pressing immediate needs for classrooms and other facilities at existing schools.  Prior budgets approved by Trustees failed to acknowledge that the average age of EPISD’s 94 campuses is approximately 56 years and maintenance costs are higher and escalating as a result.  No analysis has been conducted on the physical condition of schools or the population demographic changes since 2000!  We’re using some of the repurposed bond funds for such a study to be presented on June 17.

For the most part we have protected our Fund Balance Reserves, but the decision made by Dodge, Castenon-Williams and Hughes in July of 2010, to leave EPISD’s self-funded health insurance program and join TRS (contrary to HR committee recommendations and their ins consultant recs) will cost the district a minimum of $10 million this next fiscal year and cost us an additional $6 million already this fiscal year.

They have no excuses–they have failed to do anything other than protect their own egos–the children and taxpayers have not mattered.”

We deserve better

Brutus

With the school year winding down our students are getting their final report cards.

Our current superintendent does not have the certificate that others are required to have in order to be a school district superintendent in Texas.

As we saw in Are we that ugly? we are committed to pay the expenses for him to get the certificate.  When that involves travel we have to pay for his spouse’s expenses also.  According to the contract he has three years to become certified.

Progress report

It has been almost six months since we first wrote about the contract.  How is our superintendent doing with his quest to get certified?

Has he had time to attend to the courses or has he been too busy fiddling with his smart phone to get around to his job?

Do the courses include lessons on manners?  Might he learn to keep appointments, show up on time, and pay attention when he is meeting with people?

What have his grades been?

We deserve better

Brutus