E-mail archiving

November 1, 2013

There has been some discussion lately about local governments deleting e-mails.

This presentation out of Laredo does a great job of explaining many of the retention requirements.

The fundamental rules come from the Texas Local Government Records Act of 1989.

Some of the basics are:

  • E-mails that deal with government business are government records — even if sent from a personal device.
  • Destroying local government records can be a Class A misdemeanor and under certain cirsumstances a third degree felony under section 37.10 of the Texas Penal code.  There are also criminal penalties under the Texas Public Information Act.  These penalties could lead to removal from office.
  • The sender is the custodian of the record.  The receiver can delete messages unless
    • the receiver needs to take action based upon the message
    • the message is required for documentation
  • The receiver may delete e-mails that are spam, personal, unsolicited mail like news articles, and carbon copies.
  • For those emails that must be kept, the periods of time defined by the Texas State Library and Archives Commission (TSLAC) indicate how long they must be kept.  The periods of time generally are between 2 and 5 years, depending upon the nature of the message.
  • The TSLAC defines messages that must be kept for documentation.

I have not been able to find a law or regulation that requires any Texas local government to keep all e-mails.

There are commercially available devices that allow a government to capture all incoming and outgoing e-mail traffic.  These devices centralize the storage of the e-mails and thus make searching far easier.  Instead of having to go to each desktop or device an administrator can search the central archive.

Maybe it is time for our local governments to install these e-mail archiving devices.

We deserve better

Brutus

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Letter to the superintendent

October 31, 2013

A reader sent in a letter to the superintendent and requested that I post it.  He indicates that he has not had a response yet.

I asked for an explanation of the acronyms and received this:

DEIC—Districtwide Educational Improvement Council: comprised of district administrators, district educators, district parents, and community members at large
C&I—The district’s Curriculum and Instruction division
CCRP—The district’s College and Career Readiness Plan

The e-mail

———- Forwarded message ———-
From: Xavier Miranda <xmiranda5@gmail.com>
Date: Wed, Oct 30, 2013 at 10:04 AM
Subject: Education Issue for EPISD
To: Xavier Miranda <xmmirand@episd.org>,

The letter

October 24, 2013

Dear Superintendent Cabrera,

The following concerns and questions were to be broached at this month’s DEIC meeting. Unfortunately, circumstances did not allow for you to meet with us, therefore, I am submitting the following queries on behalf of engaged district employees, parents, and community members:

  • Full authority granted by the Board of Managers to the superintendent to hire and fire is of significant concern, given the  previous culture of intimidation.

  • Employees’ sentiments regarding Superintendent Cabrera’s lack of credentials:  demeaning educators’ certification requirements.

  • Acknowledging that networking typically entails golfing with local politicos and business leaders,  it is requested that equitable time be given to educators to solicit authentic education reform and subsequent implementation of viable policies and practices.

  • PROACT process query:

    • 92  Highly Qualified Applicants dismissed, despite a community-based process was developed.

    • Selection of a non-certified finalist; how was this derived?

    • Connection to Houghtin Mifflin publisher remains a concern. Please update.

  • Connections to Dee Margo and Board of Managers

    • The Board President has historically shown to be “unfriendly” to education, e.g., voting to cut the education budget; promoting charter schools.

    • Transparency and accountability is lacking.

      • No accountability to constituents.

    • Lack of community input by placing limitations at Public Forum.

    • The Board of Managers has initiated a merit pay model for administrators, which undoubtedly will influence teacher performance and dictate curriculum focus. SImilar exploitative practices were in place with the previous superintendent.

    • Not all Managers attend the monthly meeting, giving the impression that our district is not of high priority.

  • It is assumed that your business approach to “fixing” our district will entail realignment of resources; i.e., 116 staff at the C&I division alone, when CCRP requirements indicate that personnel could be better utilized on campuses.

  • The possibility of restoring the site-based management model?

    • Will campuses have the latitude to determine bell schedules and class requirements for students?

    • Determine the number of periods teachers are assigned.

    • Extending the school day.

  • Dr. Steinhauser’s presentation at Coronado indicates that a test-driven instructional model is hindering the critical thinking thinking process of our students. Teaching to the whole child should balance the curriculum-centered instructional approach.

Thank you for taking the time to respond.

Respectfully submitted,

Xavier Miranda

Coronado High School

4 Comments | El Paso Independent School District | Permalink
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County hospitals

October 31, 2013

I have friends on both sides of the aisle about the new children’s hospital in El Paso.

One says that it will cost the taxpayers a fortune and that no children’s hospital makes a profit.

Another says that our hospital is a separate entity from the county hospital and that it is self sustaining financially.

It has been open for about  18 months now so I thought I would look into the finances.

A quick visit to their web site elpasochildrens.org  gave me absolutely no financial information about the organization.

Failing there, I moved over to the county hospital website www.umcelpaso.org and found some information.

Not separate

The children’s hospital building is part of the county hospital district.  In fact the financial documents describe it as the “El Paso Children and Women’s  Tower”.   The children’s hospital leases it’s facilities from the county hospital. It’s financial situation directly affects our taxes.  It does have a separate CEO and board of directors.  The board is “self perpetuating” which I think means that the board appoints new members, not the county commissioners.

The following information was taken from the county hospital financials:

El Paso Children’s, a Texas not-for-profit corporation, is a separate entity apart from the Hospital District.

The Hospital District provides an allowance for uncollectible accounts based upon a review of outstanding receivables, current economic conditions and cash flows of El Paso Children’s.  (In other words the county hospital  takes more or less money from the children’s hospital depending on how things are going).

The county hospital provides about $28.4 million of services to the children’s hospital each year.  We don’t know if this is the true cost.  Is the county hospital subsidizing the children’s hospital?  Could it be the other way around?

Since the county hospital owns the children’s hospital building the county hospital increased their depreciation expense $9.9 million in 2012.

The Hospital District has entered into an affiliation agreement with an area hospital to improve the  level of health care provided to the County indigent population by participating in one of the state’s Medicaid supplemental payment programs for privately owned safety-net hospitals. The Hospital District provides funding for the nonfederal share of the Medicaid Supplemental Payment Program (“Private” UPL Program). This amount approximated $43.7 million in 2012 and $35.8 million in 2011.  It would appear that our county hospital is paying another local hospital that is privately owned to provide care to indigent patients.

Losing money

The county hospital had an operating loss of $17.8 million dollars in 2012.  Gross charges attributable to charity were 24%.

I’ve seen some financial engineering before but the people over at the county hospital seem to be specializing in it.

The jungle drums are beating out messages about a rift between the county hospital and Texas Tech as well as talk about dumping cancer patients out on the street and referring them to privately owned companies.

I plan to look into those issues.

We deserve better

Brutus

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Deja vieux

October 30, 2013

The El Paso Independent School District (EPISD) has been using a firm named Proact Search recently.

Proact brought us our new superintendent and just the other day two new associate superintendents.

It appears that Proact was hired by the old school board, the one that was neutered by the Texas Education Agency.

Now the new superintendent is using the firm that got him his job to find his senior staff.  Is there anything wrong with that?  Probably not, but it sure looks like payback.

I decided to look into the search firm and found a blog article about the Chicago Public Schools.

Sounds familiar

From the article:

Without fanfare, CPS board members recently approved a three-year, no-bid $20 million contract to provide extensive professional development for principals and network chiefs in what is being dubbed the Chicago Leadership Academy.

The size and the circumstances surrounding the contract have raised eyebrows among some outside observers. The contract with Wilmette-based Supes Academy is by far the largest no-bid contract awarded in at least the past three years, according to a Catalyst Chicago analysis of board documents. In addition, CEO Barbara Byrd-Bennett worked for the company as a coach up until the time she came on board at CPS as a consultant.

In addition, Byrd-Bennett is listed as a senior associate for a superintendent search firm called PROACT Search, in documents dated August 2012—four months after taking the position with CPS. PROACT is run by the same individuals who lead Supes: Gary Solomon, the executive director, and Thomas Vranas, the president.

Restoring public confidence is one of the things that new management is supposed to do, and this does not look good.  I guess time will tell.

We deserve better

Brutus

10 Comments | El Paso Independent School District | Permalink
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Baseball stadium now part of Quality of Life bonds?

October 29, 2013

I found this on the official site of the El Paso Chihuahuahas:

El Paso citizens approved $500 million in “Quality of Life” bonds, including the building of a state-of-the-art baseball stadium nestled in the heart of downtown to be completed for the 2014 season.

Mistaken

We know that the statement is wrong.  The baseball stadium was not voted on by the citizens.  It was not part of the “Quality of Life” bonds.

Whoever wrote that is either clueless as to what has been happening in El Paso or is trying to change history.

Move on El Paso

Some say that we should stop talking about how the ballpark came about and come together to support it.

Personally I’m inclined to think that supporting it at this point is the right thing to do.  Without our support the situation will become even worse.

As far as stopping talk about how this was foisted upon us, I disagree.  We need to remember this and see to it that our current and future city officials don’t get away with something like this again in the future.  

We deserve better

Brutus

15 Comments | Ball park, City government, Open Government | Permalink
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