Lynn Walsh

An investigation for Texas Watchdog:

Wife of Houston ISD trustees president Paula Harris’ campaign manager does $75K in no-bid consulting for HISD
Tuesday, Jun 28, 2011, 08:55AM CST
By Lynn Walsh and Jennifer Peebles

The Houston school system has paid the wife of the school board president’s campaign treasurer $75,000 in no-bid work over the last two years as a consultant, arranging classes and after-school programs on subjects including CPR, English as a second language, jazz dance and parenting.

Demetra C. Jones, the wife of prominent Houston lawyer Franklin D.R. “Frank” Jones Jr., and her businesses have been paid $78,110 by the Houston Independent School District since 2009, records released by the school system show.

Frank Jones is the campaign treasurer for Paula Harris, who was elected to the HISD trustees in 2007 and who became the trustees’ president in January. Frank Jones has also done legal work for the Houston schools, including serving as lead negotiator for the school district when it hired current Superintendent Terry Grier away from the San Diego, Calif., schools two years ago.

Demetra Jones is the former longtime head of human resources and risk management for Harris County Precinct One, working under County Commissioner El Franco Lee for two decades. She previously served as office manager in City Hall for state Sen. Rodney Ellis when he was a Houston city councilman some 20 years ago, and was public affairs manager for Ellis’ Houston investment bank, Apex Securities, according to two resumes available online.

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An investigation for Texas Watchdog:

Houston ISD trustees president Paula Harris voted on millions of dollars in contracts involving close friend’s firms
Thursday, Jun 09, 2011, 06:07AM CST
By Lynn Walsh

When the Houston Independent School District has a problem, it increasingly looks to Nicole West to solve it.

Need schools painted or fences installed? HISD hired Nicole West’s firm Westco. Need security cameras and burglar alarms installed at schools? It hired Westco. Need drapes dry cleaned for a school auditorium? It paid Westco to do it.

Need elementary school students tutored in reading? HISD paid Nicole West to tutor them. Need a high school decorated for a rededication ceremony? It paid Nicole West. Need an ambulance on standby for a high school football game? It hired another of West’s firms, a small, private ambulance service.

And when the nation’s seventh-largest school district wanted to hire a private investigations firm to track down truant high-schoolers, it didn’t pick any of the big PI firms in Houston, some of whom have dozens of investigators and have been in business for decades. It instead hired a small firm, only a few years old, owned and run by Nicole West. With two licensed investigators today, the firm’s current legal address with the state is West’s residence in Pearland.

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A story written for Texas Watchdog:

Texas school systems hang on to big-bucks reserve funds while laying off teachers
Tuesday, May 10, 2011, 08:06AM CST
By Lynn Walsh and Steve Miller

Texas’ largest school systems are laying off teachers by the hundreds and thousands while hanging on to the tens of millions of dollars in their “rainy day” and reserve funds — and some in those communities, including some teachers, say that’s a bad idea.

The Houston public schools, the state’s largest school system, has laid off more than 700 teachers to solve its budget crunch while having $279 million in reserves. The Dallas schools are considering laying off more than 1,110 employees and expect to have $85 million to $95 million in reserves at the end of the fiscal year. And the San Antonio public schools have more than $63 million in reserves, though they have found other jobs for teachers who faced threats of layoffs.

None of the three systems currently plans to dip into those bank accounts to save teachers’ jobs, though their budget proposals for the next fiscal year are in varying states of flux.

“I think they should be using the rainy day fund,” said teacher Susan Wingfield, who will be laid off at the end of this school year after 11 years in the Houston schools, the last seven teaching art at Lamar High. “We need to educate these students … We need to spend money on teachers’ salaries to do that instead of laying them off.”

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A story written for Texas Watchdog:

Houston ISD leaders won’t criticize trustees president Paula Harris for voting on contracts that included work for close friend’s firm
Thursday, Jun 16, 2011, 09:30AM CST
By Lynn Walsh

The leadership of the Houston Independent School District hasn’t said in so many words that it’s entirely appropriate for HISD trustees president Paula Harris to vote on contracts that included work for a company owned and run by one of Harris’ closest friends.

But they certainly aren’t condemning her for it.

(See the orignal Texas Watchdog story by clicking here.)

Trustee Carol Mims Galloway said she didn’t know whether the votes presented a conflict of interest. Trustee Manuel Rodriguez said it was a personal decision, Greg Meyers said it was “up to the individual board member,” and Harvin Moore said it was a “judgment call.” HISD Superintendent Terry Grier said through a spokesman that he would not voice an opinion on the matter. And the school system’s spokesman criticized Texas Watchdog for characterizing Harris’ votes as a potential conflict of interest.

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A story produced for Texas Watchdog:

Texas Watchdog probes Houston ISD’s business ties to friend of trustees’ president
Friday, Jun 10, 2011, 10:25AM CST
By Jennifer Peebles

As part of its ongoing look at potential conflicts of interest for people in government, you may have seen that yesterday Texas Watchdog took a closer look the Houston school system’s business relationship with a close friend of the president of the school district’s trustees.

See the full story by clicking here.

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A story written for Texas Watchdog:

Neighbors fear ‘eyesores’ if HISD closes four schools; old Bastian Elementary to be bulldozed
Thursday, May 12, 2011, 11:30AM CST
By Lynn Walsh

The proposed closures of four Houston elementary schools could leave those neighborhoods with more eyesores and create safe havens for illegal activity, some neighbors have said — but school district administrators said they’re taking steps to prevent that from happening.

As Houston Independent School District trustees consider closing four elementary schools, community members are reminding them of the forlorn condition of another campus, the old Bastian Elementary building on Calhoun Road.

“The fact that an unoccupied, unused, raggedy, unmonitored, closed school … sits within 1.3 miles of Grimes Elementary School and only 3 miles away from Rhoads Elementary School is very unsettling,” Tristan Washington told HISD Superintendent Terry Grier and trustees in an e-mail. “We don’t need another school closure which results in another ‘old Bastian Elementary’ situation.”

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A story written for Texas Watchdog:

City of Pearland, education nonprofit settle dispute for $2,500; conflict of interest questions raised
Wednesday, Apr 27, 2011, 02:44PM CST
By Lynn Walsh

When a marriage ends in divorce, often times, neither side walks away happy.

And so it is in the Houston suburb of Pearland, where an unusual marriage between a handful of local government agencies — including the City of Pearland and the Pearland Independent School District — has ended in a messy divorce. And no one seems to be walking away happy.

At issue is a nonprofit called the Northern Brazoria County Education Alliance, which, among other things, aims to improve local workers’ skillsets and help with local job placement.

The nonprofit brought about an unusual intermarriage of the city and the school system that some in Pearland defend and some have criticized. Long story short: Its work was largely funded by city tax dollars, but its employees were technically on the school system’s payroll.

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A story written for Texas Watchdog:

Nonprofit to hire teacher recruiter for Houston ISD while school system lays off nearly 1,000 teachers
Monday, Apr 25, 2011, 01:40PM CST
By Lynn Walsh

Help wanted: Director of teacher recruitment for a school system that just laid off nearly 1,000 teachers.

A nonprofit that is trying to help improve Houston’s public schools is hiring six full-time employees — including a person in charge of recruiting teachers.

This is the same Houston Independent School District that has notified 950 teachers that their positions are being eliminated next school year, with roughly 75% of them losing their jobs due to massive state budget cuts. (The rest are being laid off for performance issues, the school district says.)

Taxpayers aren’t picking up the tab for the six new hires. They’ll be on the payroll of The New Teacher Project, a New York-based nonprofit that has been working with HISD for more than a year to help fine-tune its hiring practices, which HISD hopes will lead to better teachers.

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A story written for Texas Watchdog:

HISD considers cutting 276 central office jobs to prepare for state budget cuts
Wednesday, Apr 06, 2011, 06:13PM CST
By Lynn Walsh

The Houston school system is poised to cut 277 positions — nearly all of them central office jobs — as it braces itself for massive budget cuts from the state.

Houston Independent School District trustees are slated to vote tomorrow on the cuts, which would save the district more than $17 million next year. But the district is facing up to $348 million in cuts from the state.

“Any more cuts would change the level of service provided to students and schools,” the district’s chief financial officer, Melinda Garrett, told trustees recently. “We can make more cuts, but it would mean eliminating entire departments, which we can do if (the trustees) want.”

The reduction in staff will also result in a central office re-organization, which will lead to the consolidation of some departments.

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A story written for Texas Watchdog:

City can’t pay Houston ISD more for crossing guards, mayor says
Thursday, Mar 31, 2011, 02:57PM CST
By Lynn Walsh

The city of Houston can’t pay the Houston school system any additional money for crossing guards, Houston’s mayor said.

Meanwhile, the school system says it doesn’t plan to get rid of crossing guards, despite the superintendent’s recent statement at a school board meeting that the school system is “going out of the crossing guard business.”

The city is already giving the Houston Independent School District all the money it can, Mayor Annise Parker said at a Wednesday press briefing.

“We spend the money that goes into that fund, and we spend all of the money that goes into that fund, and if we don’t generate enough money in that fund, then that’s all they get,” Parker said, as reported by KHOU-Channel 11 and MyFoxHouston.

HISD says the city still owes more than $400,000 from its most recent invoice it sent for reimbursement for the districts crossing guard program. The unpaid bills come at a time when the school system faces possible budget cuts of hundreds of millions of dollars,along with employee layoffs, due to the state’s budget problems.

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