That’s the question of the day asked by the Morning News in Sunday’s front-page story ("Dallas ISD hands millions in contracts to top leaders’ firms") fingering DISD president Jack Lowe, neighborhood architect Craig Reynolds and a couple of other DISD volunteers. (Good grief, could the headline the News published online be much more incriminating-sounding?)
Lowe, of course, is the elected but unpaid president of DISD’s school board, while Reynolds is the volunteer chairman of the district’s facilities task force for the 2002 and 2008 bond programs; the DMN notes he was appointed to the post by Lowe. Other facilities task force members nailed to the cross in the News story are Michael Johnson, who was appointed by the Dallas Black Chamber of Commerce, and Paule Maute, appointed by the North Dallas chamber.
Read the story yourself to see if the silver bullet of greed and criminal activity is present, but to make it easier for you, here’s a quote from the third paragraph of the News’ story: "It is legal and ethical to hire companies with ties to top school officials, under the district’s current standards, as long as transactions are reported and trustees refrain from voting on them," both of which appear to have occurred in these cases. To the News’ credit, this sentence was on the front page very early in the story, before the inside "jump" to a full page of photos, a chart and the rest of the story.
I don’t criticize the News’ right to publish this story, although I know others feel that way. DISD is a large organization that sucks hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars, and it’s reasonable to question whether people who help frame bond money expenditures should be allowed to apply to the district to earn a portion of that money for their businesses. Even though what’s going on is completely legal and ethical under DISD policy, it does raise an eyebrow if you stop and think about it, and that’s never a good thing in the forum of public opinion. (For an another view, click here to read DISD board member Edwin Flores’ comments on our companion Balk Talk Preston Hollow blog.)
The News story doesn’t suggest that Lowe, Reynolds and the other guys weren’t cooperative; in fact, with a minor exception or two, it appears the people the News is boring in on were more cooperative than DISD’s minions in terms of producing documents showing how much money had been paid to their businesses by DISD. And the story doesn’t suggest that any of the featured principals’ contributions relative to the 2002 or 2008 bond issues were in the slightest off-kilter or illegally self-benefiting or damaging to DISD in any way. And the story points out the Plano, Lewisville and Highland Park school districts "have siimilar ethics policies and are also seeking bond measures this May." So again, this seems to be a no-harm, no-foul issue in terms of legality and ethics.
Unfortunately, there are three other issues at play here…
1) Good people, by the simple fact of being mentioned in an "investigative" story like this one, are being drug through the mud because of their volunteer roles with DISD. Personally, I have known Reynolds for 10 years; our children attend the same DISD schools, and I have absolutely no doubt he doesn’t volunteer for DISD for the money. (DISD isn’t his only volunteer stint, either; he’s also chair of the Dallas Parks Foundation.) In fact, I asked him about this very DISD issue a couple of years ago, knowing that his architectural firm had done a project or two for DISD even as he helped shape the bond issues that generated the funds. His replay then, paraphrased: It doesn’t hurt that I know a bit about DISD’s needs when we fill out our application to be considered for work, but that guarantees me nothing. My service doesn’t obligate DISD to give us a penny in work. I do this because it’s important for our community. So now, a guy who spends a huge amount of time performing a thankless task — determining which schools receive needed refurbishments and which neighborhoods receive new buildings — has been tarred in print and online (meaning it will never, ever be far from the top of his permanent Google-search record), and you can bet that if he was in line to receive any architectural work from DISD in the next few years, he can kiss that business goodbye.
2) It’s no coincidence this article, which has been out there for-the-writing for years, suddenly pops up just as the DISD $1.3 billion bond vote approaches next month (for a rundown of neighorhood meetings about the bond vote, click here). The News hasn’t had much to say about the bond issue, compared with, say, the big taxpayer-subsidized convention center hotel downtown. But what little has come out about DISD lately has been about bond issue wrangling by the board, delays in completing a DISD financial audit, and now legal but debatable DISD contracting policies. See the pattern? The DMN may not be actively campaigning against the bond issue, but it’s certainly doing a good job of muddying the water — intentionally or otherwise.
3) Is it OK for volunteers to receive multimillion dollar contracts from DISD? Personally, I don’t have a problem with the policy since it appears to have been administered; honestly, if this is the worst the News or anyone else can dig up, I don’t think there’s a problem here. But the existing policy does have a bit of the pungent odor about it, meaning that perhaps it’s time to take a look at it again and make sure that at a minimum, all of the paperwork is kept current and any contracts to volunteers are appropriately categorized in DISD’s financial morass, which is appears to be a little on the sloppy side (sounds like that’s what the as-yet unreleased financial audit has found, too).
The ultimate question is whether the discussion really needs to be taking place now, a few weeks before a huge bond issue that will impact the 100,000+ students in DISD — especially when the story brings forth absolutely no real evidence of wrong-doing. Why not six months ago? Why not six months from now?
Maybe the News isn’t trying to torpedo the bond issue, but it’s doing a heck of a good job of making me feel a little dirty about voting for it.
