The Chronicle published a story today detailing gifts lavished on Houston Independent School District employees.

From the Chron:

The gifts and offers to Houston ISD employees flowed: fishing on a luxury yacht, tickets to Rockets playoff games, free cell phones.

Technology vendors vying for business in the Houston Independent School District peppered staff, including former Superintendent Abelardo Saavedra, with perks over several years, according to a federal investigation.

A recently released memo from HISD's outside law firm details for the first time the gift-giving allegations that landed the district in trouble with the U.S. Department of Justice, costing taxpayers an $850,000 fine and students tens of millions of dollars in technology at their schools.

Check out the story, but make sure to see the HISD gift-giving story published last week by Texas Watchdog. We've got lots of additional details. 

A private birthday party at an upscale steakhouse, Houston Rockets playoff tickets, checks totaling $30,000 and the offer of a personal loan for an undisclosed sum were given to Houston Independent School District employees by private companies seeking millions of dollars’ worth of technology contracts with the school system, public records show.

The gift-giving stretched all the way to the schools' top office -- then-Superintendent Abelardo Saavedra and his wife saw three Rockets playoff games in a vendor's luxury suite at the Toyota Center in 2005. The gifts were said to have begun as early as that year and as late as 2008, according to a memo from an outside law firm hired by the school district.
 
The frequency of the gifts suggests a culture where vendors extended the type of largesse -- including personal loans and just plain cash to help with family problems -- that some people would be embarrassed to seek from close friends and family. Vendors schmoozed with school officials and the district's top technology officers on a private yacht and may have paid for one school system worker to go to Las Vegas twice, the records allege; one firm with a $45 million tech contract with the school system paid for cellphones for 26 school system workers at various times during the given period.

Make sure to check out Texas Watchdog for additional watchdog stories on HISD that you won't find anywhere else.

Trent Seibert can be reached at 832-316-4994 or at trent@texaswatchdog.org.