Like a carnival barker, Vice President Joe Biden continues to ask the nation to step right up and see with its very own eyes the most amazing, spectacular, reality defying $5 billion Weatherization Assistance Program. Heavy emphasis on reality defying.

A day after Biden blew through New Hampshire announcing the stimulus plan to weatherize 600,000 low-income homes was in high gear and A-OK, the Associated Press is reporting what the Vice President isn't telling Americans. As has been reported on extensively by Texas Watchdog, the AP story says that in its 18-month history of funding, training and regulatory delays, mismanagement and suspect work, weatherization is widely considered one of the least successful of all of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act programs.

Among the many problems, the story highlights the shoddy work done by contractors for Sheltering Arms Senior Services of Houston, first reported by Texas Watchdog. Alaska has failed to weatherize a single home. And a contractor in California who received $3 million to caulk homes failed to give two dozen of its workers any weatherizing training.

The weatherization program in Biden's home state of Delaware has been suspended since May as federal auditors probed for possible fraud. 

And while Biden exudes endless optimism about the program meeting its targets, the top 15 state programs responsible for $3 billion or 60 percent of the program's $5 billion total have so far spent $793 million or just 26.4 percent of their total funding allotment.

Contact Mark Lisheron at 512-299-2318 or mark@texaswatchdog.org.

Photo of a carnival sign by flickr user SoStark, used via a Creative Commons license.

Some Houston parents and students will get paid for participating in a new academic incentive program after Houston Independent School District trustees approved the $1.5 million privately-funded program Thursday at a board workshop.

Do you think HISD should pay students to learn? Do you think parents should be paid to attend conferences with teachers? Let us know what you think. Message us on Twitter, @texaswatchdog or @lwalsh. E-mail Lynn Walsh at lynn@texaswatchdog.org.

The Texas Ethics Commission has fined Cary Jennings, the campaign treasurer for Planned Parenthood of North Texas' political action committee, $3,000 for failing to disclose spending $26,695 to support four political candidates in the November, 2008 state elections.

The Ethics Commission also found Planned Parenthood of North Texas Action Fund Political Committee had either failed to report or made mistakes with political contribution and expenditure totals on more than 17 monthly reports required by state law.

The action fund accepted the fine without protest and has improved its reporting procedures, fund director Kathryn Allen said.

The political action committee in a November 2008 report said it spent $26,695 for mass mailings the previous month. However, the report failed to say the mailings were made in support of Wendy Davis, who was running for state Senate and Dan Barrett, Carol Kent and Chris Turner, who were running for state House seats, according to the Ethics Commission findings.

The following month, the political action committee reported spending $15,410 in one day to the same company for a blitz of campaign telephone calls on behalf of Davis, Kent, Turner and Robert Miklos, who was running for the House. The Commission took note that this disclosure of candidate support was not reflected on the report's cover page.

The committee filed 17 corrected campaign finance reports on Sept. 14, 2009.

Allen said the committee made procedural errors in reporting because it is a relatively new group, inexperienced in proper campaign finance filing.

"This has all been a learning process for us," Allen said. "We have procedures in place now that should prevent us from making these kinds of human errors. I'm glad to have this behind us."

Apparently, it is easier for school board trustees in Fort Worth to file a Texas Public Information Act request to get information from their own administrators than it is to simply ask for it. And even then, the information highway sometimes remains stubbornly closed.

Trustee Ann Sutherland said she filed a complaint with the state attorney general's office to compel Fort Worth Independent School District officials to comply with a request she made six weeks ago to see some district legal expense records, according to the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. The Public Information Act says the district must within 10 business days either provide the records or a reason why they will not surrender them.

Sutherland, who ran for the board in part to get the district to make public an outside auditor's assessment of district finances, said she continued filing formal records request after her election in May because she had to.

"I have chosen to do that because I find that I get serviced better, and I still don't get it all," she said. ... "I believe this is my right as a citizen."

The newspaper reported that fellow Trustee Christene Moss expressed compassion not for Sutherland, but for school administrators who get "bogged down" by such requests "and take their eye off the ball, which is instruction."

Keith Elkins, executive director of the Freedom Information Foundation of Texas, told Texas Watchdog today he thought it a pity Sutherland was learning firsthand that many average citizens in Texas are similarly blocked when trying to get information from their public institutions.

"It sounds like the height of absurdity for an elected official to have to make a formal application for information she and the rest of the public have a right to and then be criticized for making the request," Elkins said. "Apparently, the administrators for this school district forget that they are working for the taxpayers of the district and that this trustee is a representative of those taxpayers."

Contact Mark Lisheron at 512-299-2318 or mark@texaswatchdog.org.

Photo of a school blackboard by flickr user woodleywonderworks, used via a Creative Commons license.

MARSHALL

Houston Independent School District Trustee Larry Marshall made at least $72,000 over two years from a company that will be paid $13.7 million this year to run an alternative school for HISD, documents show.

Contracts obtained from Community Education Partners show that Marshall worked for Community Education Partners, or CEP, as a consultant earning $3,000 per month from 2001-2003. Marshall’s work was performed under the auspices of his firm M Associates of Houston.

According to Randle Richardson, chief executive officer for CEP, Marshall was also working for the alternative school company in 2000 under similar terms, but he could not locate that document. With three one-year contracts, Marshall would have earned $108,000 from CEP from 2000 to 2003.

The figures conflict with the salary of $72,000 annually reported by the Houston Press in 2006 based on court documents, but Marshall has said the higher figure is incorrect.

The contract documents support Marshall’s earlier statement that he didn’t work on the Nashville, Tenn.-based company’s behalf in Texas, and that he resigned in 2004 when a policy was put in place to bar trustees from earning income from district contractors. In fact, Richardson said Marshall performed no work after the contract term was up in June 2003.

According to the contracts:

“The responsibility of the Consultant shall be to initiate contacts and perform duties requested in the normal course of the Company’s business development efforts. This responsibility only includes efforts outside of the state of Texas.”

Richardson said both Marshall and CEP wanted to make sure that Marshall “didn’t do anything in Texas.”

“At the time everyone patted it on the back for going above and beyond what was necessary,” Richardson said. “Lately when I have been contacted people act like this was a deep dark secret. It was not, we did not go behind closed doors, we disclosed everything to the board and did this in public.”

Marshall has acknowledged working for CEP as a consultant many times. At a board meeting in June, Marshall said he was a “consultant in Atlanta assisting them with business development and helped them to have a presence in Atlanta.” You can view his entire comments in the video clip below.

According to Marshall and Richardson, before Marshall signed a contract to be a consultant for CEP, it was discussed with HISD lawyers, the district and trustees “in order to avoid a conflict.”

Richardson said HISD lawyers allowed the arrangement as long as “the contract was disclosed openly, Marshall did not vote on anything dealing with CEP and Marshall did not enter into any discussions involving CEP or lobby district staff on behalf of CEP.” The standards are listed in the contracts.

Individuals associated with the alternative school provider -- which Superintendent Terry Grier in March said should be cut loose, then a few months later said should be retained -- have also donated to Marshall’s campaign. Marshall’s most recent campaign finance reports show that his campaign received $2,500 from individuals associated with CEP during the months of debate over whether to renew the contract. HISD trustees approved the contract in June, 6-1, with Marshall voting in favor. Trustee Anna Eastman voted against the contract renewal, and Trustees Paula Harris and Diana Dávila, who resigned earlier this month, were not present.

“If someone sends us a solicitation, we will send something. If there is a golf tournament and someone asks us to buy a ticket, we will,” Richardson said.

Marshall has said the donations did not create a conflict of interest because it was not the first time CEP had donated to trustee campaigns. Richardson and another executive at CEP gave $1,000 total to HISD Trustee Mike Lunceford, who voted to renew the contract.

Contact Lynn Walsh at lynn@texaswatchdog.org or 713-228-2850. Follow @lwalsh or search #HISD on Twitter for news about the Houston Independent School District.

You would think that when you hit the lottery for millions, you’d be a little cheery. But when one man won -- he's known hereafter as John Doe -- he wanted his privacy. Enough so that when the Texas Attorney General ruled that the story of the winning Texas lottery ticket was a public record, Doe lawyered up and sued the AG,  according to this item from Courthouse News:

Two Texas activist groups, Houston Votes and Texans Together Education Fund, were accused Tuesday of an organized voter fraud campaign by Harris County Voter Registrar Leo Vasquez, who likened the groups to the now-discredited ACORN.

“The integrity of the voting rolls in Harris County, Texas, appears to be under an organized and systematic attack by the group operating under the name Houston Votes,” Vasquez said at a 2 p.m. press conference at his office, where he also released copies of applications in some of the most egregious cases.

Houston Votes is the get-out-the-vote arm of the Texans Together Education Fund.

Editors Note: See the full Texas Watchdog story on this by clicking here.

“Evidence shows that the Houston Votes and Texans Together organization are conspiring on a pattern of falsification of government documents, supporting perjury in a deliberate effort to overburden our processing system," he said.

Vasquez said he is turning evidence over to the Secretary of State’s office and the Harris County District Attorney’s office for further action.

Sean Caddle, the director of Houston Votes, admitted that there may have been “mistakes made” by his vote gathering team but said Houston Votes did nothing wrong and called it a legitimate program.

However, after Caddle was shown examples of Houston Votes workers registering one name – Carmella Bellazer – with the same date of birth six times on the same day, he said “that probably would be a clear case of fraud.”

Caddle is a former SEIU worker from New Jersey and also recently worked in Colorado as part of a voter registration effort there.

Texans Together head Fred Lewis said that he has worked with Vasquez to clear up any discrepancies until recently.

"He is a liar and a political hack," Lewis said. "We are going to the Justice Department to make sure he doesn't make a mockery of the voting process."

Look for more updates on this story later today at www.texaswatchdog.org.

Contact Steve Miller at 832-303-9420 or stevemiller@texaswatchdog.org. Trent Seibert contributed to this report.

Photo of a 'Vote here' sign by flickr user Lester Public Library, used via a Creative Commons license.

View today's TrentTV episode on covering elections below. Hosts Mark Lisheron and Jennifer Peebles chatted with our live audience about backgrounding candidates, in-depth profiles, and issues coverage.

The Houston Independent School District is starting the 2010-11 school year with a new program at some high schools and middle schools across the district. Lee High School is part of the Apollo 20 program aimed at increasing academic achievement at underperforming schools in HISD.

Watch and learn what changes students and parents can expect at Lee and how much it is going to cost the district.

Contact Lynn Walsh at at 713-228-2850 or lynn@texaswatchdog.org. Follow news about the Houston Independent School District on Twitter, #HISD.