Corrected: Harris County Department of Education Board Meeting 7-16-13

When I walked into the board meeting room, Harris County Department of Education Trustee Kay Smith greeted me with a plate of food from the trough:

Happy to see that she has a sense of humor.

Unfortunately, that was about all the humor that was to be found at the meeting. This had to be one of the most frustrating public meetings I’ve ever attended. Watching elected officials kowtow to administration officials instead of protecting taxpayers and the children that the board is supposed to serve was disheartening at best.

After the Invocation and pledges comes citizen comments. I was the only citizen signed up to speak and practically begged the board not give a lobbyist a one year contract for $82,000. They didn’t listen, see below.

The staff then presented a series of reports, ranging from a salary study to the overall financial condition of the department. The salary study concluded that the HCDE is doing a good job at keeping salaries +-5{997ab4c1e65fa660c64e6dfea23d436a73c89d6254ad3ae72f887cf583448986} of the market, with only a couple of exceptions. Then Jim Schul, CIO, gave an interesting overview of virtual schools, courses, changes in the law, and HCDE’s work with local school districts. Virtual learning isn’t the future, it is now.

For the three or four of us in the room that did not work for HCDE, the interesting stuff started with Agenda Item 7, Non-Consensus. These are the items that usually have a lot of discussion before board members vote.

The first one, Item 7-A, was a request from Board President Angie Chesnut to speak on behalf of HCDE and the Board in an Op-Ed or series of Op-Ed’s in the Houston Chronicle. Obvously, Ms. Chesnut thought that it would be a good way to get information directly to the public, unfiltered. If you’ll recall, she recently wrote a personal opinion piece that was published on BJP.  Trustee Kay Smith objected, noting that the department has a professional staff that should be doing that kind of work. Trustee Marvin Morris stated that he didn’t like the Houston Chronicle, didn’t trust them, and was afraid that they would edit the work and change the context. Trustee Debra Kerner thought it was a great opportunity to speak directly to the people. In the end, it passed on a 5-1 vote, Smith being the lone no vote.

When the discussion started on Item E to approve a series of “professional” contracts, there was a glimmer of hope. There were five contracts to be considered, four of them as part of the for profit business that HCDE runs called Choice Partners, and one for a lobbyist. I’ll combine the four for brevity and then talk about the lobbyist.

First off, I wish that the board meetings were recorded and online for you to view. Viewing this discussion would give you a better understanding of this program. Regardless of what anyone tells you, this is a business that either subsidizes the taxpayer funded work of the HCDE or is subsidized by the taxpayers. This is NOT a government co-op program that you sometimes find in which different agencies pool their resources and purchase items together at the lowest cost. This is a for profit business run by taxpayer funded employees – like I said, there is disagreement over who subsidizes who but it is not a traditional co-op. And Dr. John Sawyer, Superintendent of HCDE, made this point repeatedly during the discussions for the four different contracts.

Trustee Smith asked several times about the expenses that the four men had submitted to the HCDE. Turns out they take each other to lunch and bill the department. So, we get to pay them, plus we get to pay for their lunches. But only if they talk about HCDE business of course.

I was very hopeful when President Chesnut asked pointed, relevant questions. What are the expectations? None. What are the targets that these men should produce? None. Each time she asked a question, she either got no response or a response that should have led to a No vote. But much to my dismay, she voted for each of the contracts.

Trustee Erica Lee asked if there was a bidding process. No. Then she asked why not? Why do we use the same people every year – maybe we can do better? Sawyer put on his best condescending voice and proceeded to tell her that it is such a specialized field that no one else can do it.

Trustee Diane Trautman was clearly frustrated with one of the contracts. She noted that in Don Elder’s contract that it called for training board members – she asked, what training? No one has ever given me any training. Oh, well, you have to ask, says Sawyer.

Then Sawyer brought Les Hooper, Executive Director of Facilities Support Services, up to help explain why these men were the only men in the world that could do these jobs. At one point, he told us that they expected lower revenues this year. Keep that in mind.

Sawyer then gave the best ever reason for shutting the Choice Partner program down. And if you are in one of the districts or cities that utilize their services, you’d better pay attention because there could be some people in trouble with the law after this. Pay careful attention to this:

Sawyer talked about Don Elder’s relationship selling skills and boasted about the fact that Choice Partners wasn’t the cheapest source around because of it.

In other words, if you sign a contract with Don Elder for your city or school district, you are paying MORE than you could.

Let that sink in. For you city managers and district officials out there, why are you paying more than you should in  order for your subordinates to get a free lunch? Or more? Hmm?

Not only does Don Elder get people to somehow pay more than they should, he also engages in lobbying and is not on the state’s registered lobbyist list.  When Trustee Smith asked Sawyer about a receipt that Elder turned in for a dinner with State Rep. Bill Callegari, Sawyer claimed that wasn’t really lobbying, Elder was just sharing information with an old friend. Yeah, on the taxpayer’s dime. I’m guessing that Callegari got his full stipend for the day from the State of Texas as well.

During the discussions, Hooper and Sawyer both said that Don Elder was responsible for the revenue for this business. Recall that Les Hooper told us that revenue projections for next year would be lower than this year. And yet Sawyer and the board gave him a raise.

Eventually each of these contracts with no expectations or targets for production were approved, totaling $ 327,997. Trustee Smith voted No on each one, Trustee Lee abstained on #1 and #3, Trustee Trautman abstained on #3. Trustee’s Kerner and Morris voted Yes on all four, as did President Chesnut.

Shameful.

But that wasn’t the worst. Item 7-E-5 was for a $82,000 contract to lobbyist Pat Strong. Once again, we got the “she’s not a lobbyist, she’s a liason to elected officials”. Oh really? Let’s see how Pat Strong describes her work:

Pat Strong has worked at every level of government in her career before starting Strong Strategies in 2003.  Most recently, Pat served as Chief-of-Staff to Congressman Ken Bentsen (TX-25) for eight years until he left office in 2002.  Prior to working for Congress, Pat served as statewide field director for Governor Ann Richards’ campaign.  After working as local press secretary and Harris County early vote coordinator for Clinton/Gore in 1992, Pat joined the Democratic National Committee as the Texas State Coordinator on the National Healthcare Campaign.  All of these opportunities availed themselves as a result of Pat’s role as Senior Council Aide to Houston City Council Member Vince Ryan in the 80’s.

Strong Strategies specializes in public education campaigns and grassroots lobbying as well as facilitating conversations between various groups and government.   Pat’s clients include Metropolitan Transit Authority of Harris County, Texas; Capital Metro Transit, Austin, Texas; Environmental Defense; Cover The Uninsured Week, a project of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation; American Federation of State, County & Municipal Employees, KIPP Houston; Texas Education Agency and Harris County Department of Education.  Contact us for a more complete list of clients.

Strong Strategies also specializes in political campaign consulting, fundraising, and compliance. Pat’s clients include members of the U.S. Congress, State legislators, Judges, County Officials, and City Council Members.

If that isn’t a lobbyist, I’m not BigJolly. The discussion surrounding this one was so absurd as to be comical.

Sawyer’s reasoning for needing Strong? He can’t be bothered to play phone tag with elected officials. He needs them when he needs them and Strong can make that happen. And she also can coordinate his calendar so that he doesn’t have to. She monitors legislation for him so that he knows when to hire more lobbyists. She is his information resource in the political arena because he doesn’t have time to keep up with that stuff.

Yeah, he said all of that and more. Good thing we only pay him $326,000 $246,784.92 (corrected – see below) per year – by golly big jolly, if he had to pick up the phone and call someone, we’d have to pay him more!

Again, President Chesnut steps up with the right question: What would the impact on the department be if we didn’t approve this contract?

Sawyer’s answer: “we’ve always had it. I don’t know what would happen if we didn’t.”

At that point, Sawyer had another employee come to the podium and explain how critical Strong was to the organization. Her example? When she and a group of employees when to Washington, D.C. a few years ago, Strong made all of the arrangements for them. They didn’t have to pick up the phone and do anything.

Wow. Just wow.

But that isn’t the worst of it. The four previous contracts, while not having anything in the way of expectations in them, at least had a requirement that the men turn in an expense form as proof that they had done something.

Not this one. Oh, no, Sawyer says, we can’t do that! Some of the people that she talks to on our behalf don’t want to see their names on a piece of paper in our files.

Incredible. The board voted 5-1, with Smith saying No, to give Pat Strong an $82,000 guaranteed contract that has zero accountability in it. She doesn’t have to perform a single minute of work or document a single minute of work under this contract. After the vote, she looked over at me with a smug face, and then put on a big smile. Take that, Jolly!

Some people will say “I told you so” because I was against a bill to close the department. That would be a misreading of what I said. I said that the bill was not the right one, that HCDE does do good things, and that we had elected officials to take our concerns to in an effort to fix the department. I’ve tried that route and will continue to try that route – I’ve had many conversations with President Chesnut about the problems. I can’t force her vote my way though. And my own rep, Marvin Morris, votes against the conservative area he represents.

But there is hope. Two At-Large seats will be up for election next year. If the Harris County Republican Party gets its act together and we have a big Republican turnout, we’ll take those two seats. And if that isn’t enough, and Sawyer and the board insist on wasting money instead of serving children, the 2015 Legislature will be much friendlier to an attempt to fix it. Paul Bettencourt is almost certain to be the new SD7 Senator and Paul will carry a bill to close the department and he will carry it with passion. I suspect that the Legislature will look favorably on a bill that turns what works (the Special Schools under Dr. Dee Mattox-Hall) into a charter school system and closes what doesn’t work – the rest.

And if that doesn’t work, two more seats will be up in 2016. You have to remember that politics is a long term game. Eventually, the department will stop these shenanigans or they won’t have jobs. Smug looks and taunting have never deterred me.

Correction 7-24-13: In my attempt to calculate Dr. Sawyer’s total compensation, I inadvertently included an assistant’s salary. I apologize for that error. Below is Dr. Sawyer’s total compensation as provided by Jesus Amezcua, CPA, Assistant Superintendent for Business Services for the Harris County Department of Education.

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