JUDSON ISD AUDIT ADDS TO TROUBLES:

Judson ISD Audit Add to Troubles

A scathing audit of Judson Independent School District construction practices did not come as a surprise to some who follow the often-controversial actions of the school system's leadership.

"I think many of the practices that were outlined in the report and reported on in the Express-News were well-known in industry circles. We hope the best for Judson.  School projects are complicated by their very nature," said Doug McMurry, executive vice president of the San Antonio Chapter of the Associated General Contractors.

A law firm hired by Judson to look into several building projects turned up numerous violations of the district's policies and state laws. At least one mistake appears to be a repeat of an error found by another attorney investigation, in 2000.

Since the latest report was finished last summer, the district  which serves nearly 21,000 students in Northeast Bexar County  has tried to keep the findings secret, but the 63-page document was recently leaked to the media. The district also balked at disclosing to the San Antonio Express-News the cost of the investigation, but documents obtained by a resident show Judson paid $25,000.

About a year ago, several district construction projects began to go awry, and Superintendent Willis Mackey commissioned the audit after a group of residents and school board trustee Johnny Harris began raising questions, in particular concerning the role of then-employee Luis Rodriguez, who oversaw the district's construction projects.

Feldman, Rogers, Morris and Grover, the firm that conducted the investigation, found that the district exposed itself to potential lawsuits from vendors and taxpayers by flouting everything from procurement laws to the Texas Constitution.

Though there was plenty of blame to go around, Rodriguez came out looking particularly culpable in the report. Feldman Rogers was given the task of examining specific questions, some of which focused on Rodriguez's actions.

Rodriguez said the report was essentially a smear tactic intended to help the board majority with its plan to push him out of his job.

"The report was put together under the direction of several board members who wanted to get me fired," Rodriguez said. He added that he feels there is conflict of interest, in part because Joseph Hoffer, an attorney who worked on the audit, is president of the Judson Education Foundation.

The foundation is a charitable organization that raises money for student scholarships and teacher grants. Around the time the report was completed, the PBK architectural firm, which designed at least six buildings under a 2006 bond issue and whose relationship with the district is parsed in the audit, promised $1 million to the foundation.

Harris requested the investigation after some building projects began coming in millions of dollars over budget. About the same time, he e-mailed Mackey with concerns about Rodriguez.

"He is financially killing this district, and we cannot stand for anymore of this," Harris wrote to Mackey in an e-mail dated Feb 22, 2008. "Don't let this guy leave a mess you can't fix when he is gone into retirement."

Until recently a top-level administrator in charge of the fast-growing district's building program, Rodriguez was first demoted and then fired last year. Ultimately, he was allowed to resign, after a letter from his attorney, rife with salacious allegations involving trustees, threatened an "ugly media circus" if the board did not back down.

Board members have remained mum about the Feldman Rogers report. Last month, however, before the document became public, board President June Adair said the report provided evidence that it was time for Rodriguez to leave Judson.

Lisa Pfeiffer, whose grandson attends school in the district, opposed Rodriguez's firing, although she said she is "not necessarily a supporter of Luis Rodriguez. I consider myself a supporter of what is right."

Pfeiffer's open records request for a copy of the report was denied earlier this year, but after reading the report last week, she said she found it biased.

Still, Pfeiffer said she was glad to see the report out in the open.

"I'm not happy for the district and the situation that it's in," she said.

While district parent Orlando Lopez supports a different faction of the sharply divided school board than Pfeiffer, he agrees with her about the need for public disclosure of the report.

Lopez, whose questions about construction projects helped prompt the investigation, said he is dismayed trustees worked so hard to keep it under wraps.

"I believe that every one of them, even the new board member, is responsible for covering this up," said Lopez, adding that the board should have been open about district problems and proposed solutions. "Hiding this does not prove transparency."

Judson has cycled through five superintendents since 2000. Trustees have been known to abruptly walk out of board meetings, and last year district police were called to one meeting to temper an argument between two trustees.

LeAnn Buntrock, assistant executive director for the Darden/Curry Partnership for Leaders in Education at the University of Virginia, said governance problems among school trustees and administrators are nothing unusual, but districts need to maintain a focus on student achievement.

"Some disagreement is healthy, as long as you are on the same page with a focus on student achievement above everything else and as long as you are in alignment with the way you are going to achieve that," she said.

For Judson, power struggles between opposing factions on the board of trustees, as well as disagreements between trustees and district leadership, are legendary. But the Feldman Rogers report uncovered more than dysfunction, pointing to specific instances when the district disregarded law and protocol.

For example, the district failed to follow a required two-step process when hiring PBK to design buildings funded by the 2006 bond issue. Officials bypassed state procurement laws by hiring the firm without holding separate conversations about qualifications and fees, attorneys said.

In late 2005, then-Superintendent Edward Lyman told trustees that PBK would provide some up-front work for free if it was promised projects from the coming 2006 bond issue. The next year, Lyman and Rodriguez signed contracts with PBK to design at least six new buildings.

"No evidence appears in the record that the board formally delegated authority to Dr. Lyman and/or Mr. Rodriguez to enter into these contracts," the report states. Some trustees later questioned giving so much work to one firm, but others said the architects had been promised work for helping the district pass the 2006 bond issue, according to the report.

Rodriguez disputed the accuracy of the report and said the two-step procurement process was followed.

"The negotiations didn't start until after the board selected the firm," he said. "And I can tell you that because I'm the one who conducted the negotiations."

Joel Hernandez, PBK's partner in charge of San Antonio operations, did not return calls for comment.

Not learning from mistakes

McMurry, of the general contractors group, said he does not think Judson's missteps are widespread.

"For the most part I think the school districts in Bexar County are very good about procurement," he said. "There are cases where the school district and the contractor and the architect are not working together very well, and in those cases the mistakes do not favor the taxpayer."

It appears the Judson district may not be learning from its mistakes.

This is the second time this decade that Judson paid a law firm to investigate a district land deal.

In 2000, the controversy involved a $1.5 million land deal. Then-Superintendent Galen Elolf ordered the acquisition before a board vote, according to Express-News articles at the time. A different law firm hired by the trustees looked into it and determined the purchase was legal but "irregular," and, like the Feldman Rogers report that would come later, recommended explicit board approval of land acquisitions.

Yet in late 2006, Rodriguez bought two tracts of land for the district's new Converse Elementary School although no records show trustees delegated that authority to him, according to the Feldman Rogers report.

Pfeiffer suggested that the district could have maintained some credibility with taxpayers but avoided publishing a blueprint for potential litigants had it produced the report in two sections: immediately releasing the firm's findings of fact to the public and keeping privileged a separate report with legal recommendations.

Lopez and Pfeiffer agree that the district would benefit from greater openness.

"I think they need to go through some extensive training; some of that is already taking place. I think they need to use better planning. I think they need to use better delegation of authority," Pfeiffer said. "But first and foremost, being open and honest with the public regardless of the quality of the news."