David Tuthill

When will it all end? It keeps going on and on, and getting worse and worse.

The light at the end of the tunnel turns out to be a freight train coming down to run our sorry rears over AGAIN! It reminds me of a financial commentator statement comments on the 1980's financial crisis: ?It is always darkest before it?s pitch black!?

But I'm not referring to the national or worldwide financial crisis; I am referring to the Gordian Knot called the Dallas Independent school district. A DISD graduated might not know, but the Gordian Knot was a large knot that was at the gates of the Far East. It was said that whoever undid the knot would conquer the world. Alexander the Great took his sword and cut it into bits. He went off to conquer the Far East before he died.

The DISD and it?s parts are a present day Gordian Knot that seems unfixable. We should follow Alexander's lead and take an ax to it. The DISD is a cancer (one of many in local government) on the body Dallas.

I have been quiet these past weeks with the election upon us. The country may be looking for change, but this has not filtered down to the local body politic. DISD Trustees are holding on for dear life telling themselves with just a little more time they can get back to business as usual.

Lets review the past few weeks:

All those DISD (630) teachers were axed. Did they leave the bloated administration alone trying to correct a budget deficit that could reach $84 million? Superintendant Michael Hinojosa showed leadership (or not) by taking a whopping 5% pay cut. If he is forced out, I am sure our DISD trustees will make sure he gets one of those big Golden Parachutes for his ineptness for his part in this mess.

The Trustees enacted new ethics rules that stopped short of impacting trustee president Jack Lowe's company, TD Industries, dealing with the DISD ($9 million since 2002). The argument against stronger rules was that ?banning such contracts could limit the number of residents willing to serve on the school board!?

I can see the quality of trustees we have cultivated under the old rules!

Dallas ISD trustees to decide on new ethics rules (By Lori Stahl, DallasNews.com, 10/30/8):

School board president Jack Lowe has said he would not have run for office if it prevented TD Industries, where he is chairman of the board, from doing business with the district. He has said that TD Industries has done more than $9 million worth of business with the district since 2002.

Dallas school trustees are told new audit won't be positive (By Kent Fischer, DallasNews.com, 11/7/8).
Chief financial officer Steve Korby said the district did not have time to fix problems highlighted in last year's stinging audit before the 2007-2008 fiscal year ended! The article notes issues found in the 2006-2007 audit that should have been completed by December, 2007.

The DISD administration is very skilled at burying their heads in the ground enough to delay the last audit results until after the $1.32 BILLION dollar bond proposal passed in May. I do not know about you but it seems that every audit has brought up issues that the school board and superintendent have seen fit to ignore. The last I hear on this is that they are finally (whatever that means) putting on a fast track the restructuring of the financial administration

The trustees feel that they have done such a good job as stewards of the DISD that they should be entrusted to a four-year term instead of the present three-year term! Talk about a bunch of self-serving incompetents!

There is no end in sight to pry them out of running the district into the ground and squandering our tax dollars. Not for the good of the children, but for the good of upper administrators, trustees and the superintendent. Before all this hit the fan, they had extended Hinojosa?s contract!

This week, it's the DISD using fake Social Security numbers were used to expedite bilingual hiring. It is unclear how long the DISD had been issuing phony Social Security numbers . District officials didn?t know Thursday how many fake Social Security numbers had been given out. DISD Human Resources Chief Kim Olson (hired in 2007) said she learned about the false numbers this past summer around the time the DISD?s investigative unit was looking into the matter and that she stopped the practice.

Reminds me of the INS raids in those meatpacking companies that have been in the news over the past year!

The only ray of sunshine is the recent sentencing to 11 and 10 years in Federal prison respectively to the participants of the $150 million dollar technology contract scandal and the fishing trips of Rubin Bohuchot (former DISD technology chief) and businessman Frankie Wong. Unfortunately, the light at the end of the tunnel is always replaced by yet another revelation about the way the DISD operates.

Yes, it is pitch black and getting darker every day.

Where are the other local and state elected officials in enabling this mess? Perhaps, they feel that if they touch this mess it will stick to them! We can only hope the TEA, that is poised over the body of the DISD like vultures over a rotted carcass, will take over the DISD to end this nightmare and like Alexander the Great, will cut the mess which is the Gordian Knot of the DISD. An FBI investigation would not be bad either.

Put us out of our misery!

David W. Tuthill