Nothing fazes Tucson Unified School District Board Member Michael Hicks.
Last month, state Sen. Steve Farley paid a visit and called Hicks out for supporting a bill that hopes to take all of the desegregation money away from TUSD. Hicks said in that meting that he would back up his support for the legislation, if the district agreed to hire an auditor.
Understandable—keeping track of where the money is spent is a good thing. The district has said they are not against that, but TUSD Board Member Cam Juárez told me a few weeks ago, there is no money to hire an auditor.
Hicks may be at it again.
I wrote yesterday that there are new funding amendments in two separate bills also attacking TUSD’s deseg money. According to the photo above provided by Farley’s Facebook, a “Charles” Hicks supports one of the proposals—an amendment to SB 1120, which would freeze deseg funds until there is an audit and the appropriations committee reviews the results of such audit.
TUSD Superintendent H.T. Sanchez is testifying against both amendments in front of the House Appropriations Committee’s hearing today. More info on that should be coming our way soon.
From Farley’s Facebook:
“He’s at it again. Rogue TUSD board member Michael Hicks (aka Charles) signed up in favor of the 1120 striker in House Approps this morning that would endanger $64 million annually from TUSD’s court ordered deseg budget, working against his own superintendent who will be testifying against.”
This article appears in Mar 19-25, 2015.
Ms. Taracena – a commenter posting under “Do the Math” wrote this about the article where you quoted Cam Juarez asserting that there was not enough money for an independent auditor. Would you please respond to “Do the Math”?
“Do the Math” wrote:
“If members of the current board majority (including Mr. Juarez) think that the district “can’t afford” to install an independent auditor, they should explain why they voted in favor of so many other positions being added to central administration within the last year.
Tucson Weekly staff: do your homework. Identify all the positions added to TUSD central while the current majority has been in place. Add up the cost to the public. Report this total cost together with the above quote from Mr. Juarez: “Of course, we want an internal auditor, but there is no money, how am I going to justify that?”
Also, could you please give Mr. Juarez a call and ask him how his estimate of the cost ($400K) breaks down? How much for each auditor (if there are to be two) and support staff, benefits, etc. over what period of time (are we talking about an annual figure, etc.)?
David Safier explained where the $250K figure he quoted for the cost of the auditor came from and Robin Beelen explained where her $500K figure came from ($250K x 2 years) but we still don’t know where the $400K figure came from.
Thank you…I look forward to reading your response.
Quote from your article:
“Understandable—keeping track of where the money is spent is a good thing.”
Do you think? It hasn’t happened in 20 years. They seem to be accountable to nobody.
Close TUSD!
Maybe if we close all the schools, Rat, you will eventually ascend to your rightful position as intellectual heavyweight champ.
Naw.
Did I call for closing all the schools? No peabo, just the criminal ones.
You really can’t be proud of the mess they have made can you?
Then I assume you have an alternative ready to roll once TUSD shutters. Or is salting the earth your preferred method of choice?
Assumptions are really all you have. Stick with it.
Farley writes that Hicks will be “working against his own Superintendent.” Sorry — is Hicks, an elected member of the TUSD governing board, under some obligation to agree with the Superintendent, an employee of the district, in every instance? Though the current board majority seems to support and follow the current Superintendent on every blessed policy and legislative issue, rather than setting policy for the district which the Superintendent must follow, which is their proper role, that does not mean that other members of the board are under any obligation to follow their lead and “do likewise.”
I don’t agree with Hicks on many issues — and I may not agree with him on this one, when all the facts are in — but it is inaccurate to say that in the role he is taking here he is trying to decrease the district’s funding. If I understand him properly, he seems to be in favor of making the continuation of the desegregation funding contingent on the district passing a forensic audit that would verify that the desegregation funds already collected have been properly applied. That’s not the same as asking the legislature to decrease the district’s funding, or being in favor, as your headline implies, of “Cutting $64M in Deseg Funds.”
Please be accurate and fair in how you report what is going on in TUSD and with the legislature. The district’s cause is not helped by the spread of misinformation.
Why don’t we discuss what has been accomplished with the hundreds of millions with deseg money?
Is everybody out there thrilled with the results of 20 years of spending?
TUSD closing more schools? You may get your wish Rat T
They are having to do it themselves.
https://arizonadailyindependent.com/2015/03/25/tusd-administrators-looking-for-higher-ground/#comment-187114
@Please be accurate. The funds would be withheld until the audit. A 64 million dollar cut, until the audit is unacceptable to most educators and parents. The legislature hates TUSD, and this is simply revenge for educating undocumented children.
You cannot say, that Mr. Hicks is doing this as a good steward.
Several points:
1) The $400,000 estimate of the cost of an internal auditor (see previous article) is absurd. The independent MGT audit six years ago estimated a cost of about $100,000 annually. The high number seems to be partly based on the assumption that the auditor would need personal support staff. It has indeed been TUSD’s habit to inflate administrative costs by loading administrators with support staff whether needed or not, but that is not what I or anyone else is proposing for this position. The MGT audit also pointed out that “The cost of an internal auditor is usually more than offset by savings generated through improved efficiencies and improving operations.”
The district has magically found money for, and the board has approved, buckets of other new spending in recent weeks, including $750,000 over five years to train teachers at ONE school in project-based learning (after TUSD has paid other consultants to do exactly the same thing).
2) The proposed strike-all amendment to S.B. 1120 does not threaten to reduce desegregation spending until fiscal year 2016-17, which begins 15 months from now. That seems to be adequate time to conduct the audit and review required by the amendment.
3) As a previous commenter observed, Hicks and all other members of the board report to the public, not to the superintendent.
4) Do you contact Mr. Hicks for response, for example about whether he is changing his name, before mocking him in print?
They always say there’s no money to hire an auditor. The media accepts this at face value? There are 64 million dollars to hire an auditor. But it’s hard to have your own slush fund with an auditor sniffing around.
Expecting any kind of journalistic professionalism from Tucson Weekly is apparently expecting too much. They have repeatedly made it clear — in the run up to the 2014 elections and in recent coverage of legislative issues — that they are incapable of it.
As for TUSD — governance by misinformation (relying, for example, on much of your constituency being uninformed about the facts, e.g. how much the installation of an auditor would actually cost and how much has been allocated recently to other positions and initiatives) is — what can we call it? I’ll say “irresponsible” and leave it at that.
Any thing that keeps TUSD from wasting more of our tax dollars I am for it. Can I vote to?
PaulAZ – if you just want to piss and moan about public education without offering any solutions other than charter schools, could you at least proofread your comments before posting? It would make it a little easier to take you seriously.
Thank you Paul. You are exactly right. This activity has been condoned for years by lazy voters.