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9/12/8 - But, it's our money
his buddies lost.
Like most everyone else in town, I was excited over the idea of a DISD graduate
rising up in his profession to become the superintendent of the district where
he got his pre-collegiate education. What a great role model for current
DISD students he could have been.
The excitement did not last long.
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My first disillusionment with Dr. Michael Hinojosa came with his agenda to force
tenured principals to learn Spanish within 3 years or face demotion. Last
I heard, this is Dallas, Texas. Although the vast majority of the kids in
DISD are now Hispanic, their parents are not the majority of DISD taxpayers.
It's one thing to make a rule for new hires or new promotions, but it's quite
another to impose a new requirement over professionals who were hired or
promoted previously.
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9/12 Greg:
Criminey, Sharon, how do they find these yaahoos?
I agree with you. He's
embarrassing.
I can't find
anything positive about the guy, except that he's not Bill
Rojas, who was psycho.
I smell a
lawsuit. Has there been a DISD superintendent leave without
a lawsuit?
Editor's response: Well,
there was Yvonne Gonzalez, who went to jail for spending $10K for
home furniture. Guess it pays to think big - $10K = jail time,
$64M = no problem.
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Think about your job. What if your boss walked in and said you had to be
fluent in Spanish within three years with no time off for you to take a course?
How much spare time do you have after work to study Spanish? A school
principal or teacher has even less spare time than you. Teachers have
lesson plans to prepare, papers to grade, etc., not to mention the after school
programs imposed on them. Principals have even less spare time than
teachers.
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It was a typical bureaucratic decision made by someone with no administrative
experience in the real working world. It was the first time I suggested
the DISD should not be run by a school teacher. |
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9/12 Barbara:
Heard Hinojosa being interviewed about the
?shortfall? on the radio and was shocked at his cavalier
attitude about the situation.
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Then, there was the credit card scandal that was everybody else's fault except
Dr. H. James Ragland still sort of gives Dr. H a pass for that disaster,
Confidence in Dallas ISD Superintendent Michael Hinojosa
shaken
(DallasNews.com, 9/11/8), but I
don't. Dr. H allowed a scheme to blame the mess on one low level manager
until she fought back, which is going to cost us another bundle. The poor
woman had been trying to get anyone's attention on the pending problem.
She told her supervisors she did not have the staff to monitor the expenditures,
that card users were not furnishing receipts, but she got no assistance and no
one thought it was important until Allen Gwinn (Dallas.org and DISD.com) blew
their cover. Allen put the charges on an on-line data base for all to
review. The Dallas Morning News
stole his story and tried to take all the credit for the expos? but everyone
knows it was Allen Gwinn who exposed the scandal.
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Allen Gwinn is the most wonderful citizen. He is not politically
ambitious, but he cares about this city and the DISD. For a long time,
Allen could not bring himself to blame Dr. H or Dr. H's upper level management
for the problem because they lied to him. |
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9/14 Linus
Spiller:
Want to commend you on a well-written and to the point column regarding
this latest DISD
fiasco. You say
Hinojosa should
resign, as
should the
trustees.
After painstakingly getting my son through the DISD system to graduation
against very low
expectations
from
administration
and teachers, I
have serious
reservations
about the
district's
ability to
educate OUR kids
with OUR tax
dollars. This
latest action
solidifies my
concerns.
KUDOS! for the help you gave our neighbor to get him to graduation. I
used the same
newspaper
technique with
Andrew and that
helped him go
from a 3rd grade
reading level to
the 10th grade
(which he was
entering) in a
9-month period.
It took
dedication and
astute attention
to homework,
which I
monitored
diligently. DISD
could take
pointers from
both of us.
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Then Sarah Dodd (former Ch 11 ace reporter) exposed upper DISD management who
were breaking the DISD's residency requirements. Dr. H's high paid buddies
did not want their kids in the DISD, so they ignored the requirement for them to
live inside the DISD boundaries. We are talking about people making over
$150K annually. People, who were making decisions that impacted the
education of DISD students and the waste of DISD taxpayers' monies, would not
live in the district or let their kids be traumatized by a DISD education.
Although Dr. H. knew his P.R. jerk was breaking the rules, he did not nothing
about it until Sarah Dodd forced his hand.
We have one of the highest dropout rates in the country, but that's not Dr. H's
fault. Not much!
Dr. H and our sorry school board sold a billion dollar bond package to STUPID,
STUPID voters last Spring, while they withheld a damning audit report until
after the election. They knew there was a problem way before the audit
report was made public. The fact that it was so difficult to do an audit
should have been a clue to the STUPID, STUPID voters who fell for the DISD
campaign of lies and promises.
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Until this $64 million fiasco, the most recent Dr. H bonehead decision was to
lower the grading policy to provide "a safety net" for non-achievers. No
grades for homework whether you turn it in or not -- real incentive to
non-achievers to pull up their baggy pants and get to work. Do-overs for
failed tests -- take it once, fail and then look up the answers -- take it again
for a better score. Then again, the non-achievers would not even bother
looking up the answers. Dr. H was very proud of this plan. The real
educators in the DISD are horrified with this plan. |
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9/14 Barbara:
There is too much money in DISD. It presents a huge temptation
to those people with larceny in their hearts. What about splitting the
money part off and let a trusted money management firm take over that
part so the ?experts? can concentrate on education. Have any other
cities done this? |
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No billion dollar corporation could operate like the DISD. Every division
of the corporation would be expected to account for its costs and operation.
As bad as things are at Dallas City Hall, the DISD's operations make City Hall
look like a well run and tight ship.
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You don't just lose $64 million. Oh, right -- it's not $64 million lost --
it's $64 million spent over budget. But, you don't just overspend $64
million dollars! No one in the real world would do that and still expect
to keep their job. Dr. H gets to keep his job, because he blamed the mess
on one of his good buddies, who does not get to keep his job. |
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9/14 Bob H:
I read your missal about the fools at the DISD.
Ultimate responsibility lies at the
Board. They are directly responsible for Dr. H. He is responsible
for the administration and everyone below.
Where is it written the top
guy must be an education type?
The top guy must have capabilities to run
a large business. The education types
could start at the second level, NOT THE FIRST.
This may be a school
district, a not-for-profit, governmental,
etc., but it MUST be run as a large
business.
The building across the street that
handles people is almost as incompetent as the
Board. Where do I go to get my piece of the pie?? If there
is this much stupidity and incompetence, where can a competent white
guy fit in??
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DISD watchdog Allen Gwinn exposed a nepotism problem in the DISD's upper
management,
DISD Executive's Wife
Lands Top DISD IT Job
(Dallas.org, 7/14/8). Arnold Viramontes
promoted his wife to head up the DISD's IT. Allen reports:
| District
records indicate that Arnold Viramontes receives a salary of
$182,811. Patricia Viramontes receives a salary of $137,500 giving
the husband-and-wife team a total of $320,311 in taxpayer money (not
including expenses). |
In
Budget deficit update -- DISD's Chief Operating Officer
replaced
(DALLAS ISD Blog; DallasNews.com, 9/11/8), Kent Fischer reports:
| The biggest news right
now is that Eric Anderson, the Chief Operating Officer that the
district hired from Wall Street, is apparently gone.
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In
Dallas ISD
announces $64M budget shortfall
(DallasNews.com, 9/11/8), Tawnell Hobbs and Kent
Fischer report:
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Dr. Hinojosa said he was immediately
putting the finance department under the supervision of Arnold
Viramontes, his chief of staff. The district was also instituting an
immediate hiring freeze, and administrators will begin looking to
cut spending. |
Isn't that special? Big
time nepotism abuser and Dr. H's chief of staff is going to supervise the DISD's
finance department. Would someone tell us what are Mr. Viramontes'
credentials that would qualify him to oversee a finance department of a billion
dollar operation?
Taking that question a step further, what are Michael Hinojosa's qualifications
for holding his position over a billion dollar operation? I won't argue
that he might make a good assistant superintendent, but he clearly is in over
his head.
If Dr. H's primary job is to bring in people to manage the various departments
of the DISD, he has failed miserably. His hires are right up there with
our old Superintendent Rojas (Lounge Lizard). They make a lot of money and
leave a big mess.
If Dr. H's job is to look at the big picture and he couldn't see a $64 million
hole in the budget, he has failed miserably.
If Dr. H's job is to improve the DISD's graduation rate, he has failed
miserably.
He needs to go, but in
Hinojosa: 'I'm not going anywhere'
Kent Fischer (DALLAS ISD Blog, DallasNews.com,
9/11/8) reports:
| Here's the deal in 26
words: Hinojosa says he repeatedly asked for reports about the
payroll deficit but staff never gave him the info he requested in
the form that he wanted. |
Can you believe that?
There's a $64 million overspending, and Dr. H's excuse for not knowing about it
is "staff never gave him the info he requested in the form that he wanted"!
I want to repeat that "in the form that he wanted".
Dr. H seems to be trying out for a part in "Dream Girls". In
Hinojosa says Dallas ISD is in
'crisis mode' ,
Kent Fischer and Tawnell Hobbs (DallasNews.com, 9/13) report:
In a
phone
interview
with The
News'
Editorial
Board on
Thursday,
Dr. Hinojosa
said he was
displeased
with the
amount and
type of
information
that the
staff had
provided him
regarding
the
overruns.
He said
he will not
resign,
saying a
change at
the top now
would make
the
situation
worse.
"I'm not
planning on
walking out
of here," he
said. "It
would be bad
for somebody
else to try
and come in.
They'd have
to start all
over to try
and fix
this.
Ultimately,
I am
responsible,
and
I'm not
going
anywhere."
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I am the Comptroller for a small law firm, a very successful small law firm.
My job is to keep things running smoothly, to hire qualified people to work for
us and to keep a set of books that my boss can understand. My boss has
this old fashioned idea that he should be able to see how much money he has in
the bank and where his money has been spent. That might be because it's
real money (his money) being spent by our firm and not "other people's money"
like what Dr. H and his administration spend.
I don't think all bureaucrats are incompetent. Most government employees
are loyal and capable, but there is a mindset among some that results in
situations like the DISD's $64 million budget buster. When you spend your
entire working career moving up in a bureaucracy with no time in the private
sector, your perspective on economic matters is likely to be a bit one
dimensional. Most bureaucracies have the mindset that you spend everything
in your budget so you can ask for at least that much the next year, if not more.
The kind of people who actually count the beans for the taxpayers and try to be
efficient with tax dollars don't rise to the top in bureaucracies. Their
colleagues don't like anyone rocking the budget boat.
It's not just hired bureaucrats afflicted with that attitude. Look how the
Dallas city council treats Mitch Rasansky because he tries to watch out for Joe
Taxpayer.
There is no excuse for this Board to have allowed things to get so bad.
Board President Jack Lowe is supposed to be a successful businessman. He
would never accept this kind of shoddy accounting in his business.
Dr. Edwin Flores is an attorney with a science Ph.D. He's a smart guy.
He surely saw some signs of overspending.
This entire school board should demand Dr. H's resignation and then all resign
themselves after calling an emergency election to replace them.
Someone should go to jail. This is way beyond incompetence. They
claim all the money was spent on salaries, but how does anyone know? The
DISD accounting system must be incredibly bad if they could be $64 million in
the hole and no one knew? If they can prove the $64 million was spent on
teacher salaries, then someone should have seen the problem before the audit.
They didn't see the problem, because they can't prove where the money was spent
and they are lying to say otherwise.
It's time for Dr. H to go or at least demoted.
Do you think any university could be run in such a slap hazard way? If
it's a private institution, it's donors would be screaming for someone's head if
they overspent their budget by $1 million, much less $64 million. If it's
a state-owned institution, the Legislature would be holding hearings, sending in
the Rangers and whatever else it took to find out where the public's $64 million
was spent. They would not take some assurance that the $64 million got
spent on salaries.
We should hire a real administrator to oversee the DISD, and that person should
not be former teacher. The Superintendent should be someone with
experience outside of education. The Superintendent doesn't
necessarily need to come from the corporate world, but should have an accounting
background. The Superintendent should be able to create a financial form
that he can read and should require his staff to use that form.
The experiment with Dr. H is a bust. His failure doesn't mean that no DISD
graduate should ever be the Superintendent again, but he certainly has made it
less likely.
Dr. H has had numerous chances to show his up to the job. He has failed to
do that.
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