Yesterday’s search of Houston ISD’s check register was by vendor names beginning with the letter “N”. The point of highlighting this expenditure is not to emphasize the amount, but to highlight the arrogance and blatant disregard for prioritizing common sense spending of tax dollars by the public sector.
From another search of HISD’s check register (click to enlarge):
It’s for a Junior Membership, too!
The Junior, Distinguished and Other Memberships section lists a one year Junior Membership for $15.00. Here’s a screen grab from the NRA website:
Are memberships to the NRA a spending priority of HISD?
UPDATE by David Jennings: This video is the perfect complement to Yvonne’s post. For all of you that are screaming (irrationally, btw) about school districts having to lay off thousands of teachers, please put your brain into gear and think about this for a minute or two. Okay?
Royko says
I would think they do it, so as to get the magazine in order to monitor their perceived enemy.
Noislamocommie says
Wow….do they have right-wingers at HISD? I think taxpayers ought to know about the costs of sending yellow school buses up to Austin to protest alongside communists and reconquistas.
Rebecca Flores says
These two memberships came out of the Student Activity Funds – ROTC Student Account for Westside High School. No district funds were spent on these expenditures.
Rebecca Flores
Houston ISD
Oilacct says
What are we supposed to do? Accept that our kid’s teacher may get the axe because the morons in the legislature don’t have the balls to make lawyers pay taxes like other businesses in Texas? Accept that ramming a probe up the vagina of a woman wanting an abortion is more important legislation that figuring out how to pay for the services the state ought to provide? There has to be a middle ground between the spend, spend, spend mantra of the Democrats, and the “let’s make the rich richer” mantra of the Republicans, who also think I’m evil because I don’t go to church every Sunday.
Do you really think that getting rid of all the administrators is going to solve the problems in education funding? Really? Someone has to manage the schools, make payroll, comply with all the paperwork requirements, deal with discipline issues, negotiate IEP’s with parents who think their kis needs special attention, etc, etc, etc. Get real.
Yvonne Larsen says
No taxpayer funds were used? Really?
According to HISD’s website the people involved with overseeing the Student Activity Funds are General Clerks and Principals and employees of an Office of the Inspector General, a Controllers Office, a Treasurer’s Office, a Risk Management Bureau, a Chief Academic Officer, a Chief Improvement Officer and an entity called the HISD Depository Bank. The processes performed involve collecting funds, depositing funds, redepositing funds, uncollectible check funds, reconciling funds, approving use of the funds, writing procedure manuals around use of the funds, and a records retention policy assoicated with these funds.
These roles & processes involve using taxpayer dollars in paying for the NRA memberships.
Oilacct says
@yvonne, those are the processes around student activity funds that ensure the amounts contributed by students are properly handled and accounted for. They are required by state regulations, the districts don’t have much latitude on this. Being an accountant, I suspect the school districts would love to get rid of the hassles associated with multiple low dollar accounts.