Texas Watchdog

Finishing 5 light rail lines will be tough job, Metro transition chief says

Fri Mar 19 19:57:00 2010 CST

Completing Houston's five proposed light rail lines is going to be a "very heavy lift."

That's the word from James Moncur, the leader of Mayor Annise Parker's Metro transition committee. "It's going to be a consistent monitoring analysis process from here on out. It's going to be a very heavy lift, and I think these board members understand this," he said.

The board members Moncur is referring to are five nominees Parker named at a press conference on Thursday. The nominees are Gilbert Andrew Garcia, Christof Spieler, Allen Dale Watson, Carrin F. Patman and Dwight E. Jefferson.

Parker said she and the five new board members are committed to building all five of the proposed lines. But both Parker and Moncur said that the time table for completion may have to be adjusted.

Moncur said the completion of the five new rail lines depends on the financial stability of Metro. Financial numbers presented to Moncur and other members of the transition team seem reasonable, Moncur said, but those numbers could change.

Reports from the five transition committees were also released on Thursday.

Chair of board on Head Start funding says group not covered by state open meetings law

Fri Mar 19 19:14:00 2010 CST

The head of a state board that will oversee $37 million in public money for expanding Texas' Head Start programs says the group is not required to post the times and locations of the meetings to the general public, as required by the state open meetings law.

The meetings of the State Advisory Council on Early Childhood Education and Care will be open to the public, and 41 people attended its first meeting earlier this year in Houston. But John Gasko, chairman of the council, said the group isn't legally required to give written notice of its meetings because the board doesn't fall under the state's sunshine law, he said.

"We spoke with the secretary of state and the governor's office about it," said Gasko, an official at the Children's Learning Institute at the University of Texas Health Sciences Center in Houston. "We need to meet but do not necessarily have to meet the requirements of the open meetings act."

Texas' Open Meetings Act says that "a governmental body shall give written notice of the date, hour, place, and subject of each meeting held by the governmental body," except in emergency circumstances. The phrase "governmental body" is defined in the law to include "a board, commission, department, committee or agency within the executive or legislative branch of state government that is directed by one or more elected or appointed members."

The council will meet again on April 7 at the offices of the Texas Education Agency, 1701 N. Congress Ave., Austin, and the time and place of that meeting is described on the Children's Learning Institute's Web site. That will be the council's second meeting -- the first took place on Jan. 13 in Houston, where members discussed how they would proceed, according to the meeting minutes. The panel has publicized the meetings in the early childhood education community, Gasko said, via Internet listserves.

The panel was created as part of the federal Improving Head Start for School Readiness Act of 2007, which a number of Texas Republicans opposed in the House. Both U.S. Sens. Kay Bailey Hutchison and John Cornyn voted "yes" on the Senate bill.

The stated intention of the the program is “to reauthorize the Head Start Act, to improve program quality, to expand access, and for other purposes.” In civilian terms, it means to broaden the reach of Head Start programs, and promote school readiness of low-income children. The program is overseen by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services' Head Start office.

Texas has 86 Head Start programs and 164 Early Head Start programs, serving 67,630 children, according to the Web site of the Texas Head Start Association. Twenty-three percent of all Texas children (ages 17 and under) live below the poverty level, according to the most recent estimates from the federal Census Bureau.

If Texas decides to apply to get in the federal program, the state will put in $26 million and the federal government will put in $11.3 million from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act -- commonly known as the federal stimulus bill. The deadline for the proposals/applications is Aug. 1.

Late last year, Gov. Rick Perry appointed a number of folks to the council. His office announced another appointment to the council this week. But before it can do anything, the body has to hold at least one public meeting, according to these guidelines:

"Consistent with Section 642B(b)(1)(D)(ii) States are required to hold public hearings and provide an opportunity for public comment before submitting the strategic report with their application."

The council's appointees can't be paid for their service, but "states may bring in consultants or a contractor to do some kind of work," said Richard Gonzales, senior advisor for early childhood development and education at HHS in Washington. The money is only to last for three years -- by then, Gonzales said, hopefully the states will figure out ways to continue funding the programs implemented with the federal funds. States can take the money from other programs aimed at early childhood development, Gonzales said.

“Let’s say the state is already using state and local dollars to retain teachers in childhood development, for example,” he said. “That could be part of the matching money allocation.” As long as it’s state or local money.Texas already has millions of dollars budgeted for early childhood education, Gasko said, and that money will fit the requirement for matching funds. And the federal grant, he said, will provide "critical seed money to start developing innovations to meet the needs we have that are unfulfilled in the state.

"With the new federal money, there will be money for contractors and consultants, some of which will be selected in a bidding process, but others who will be listed ahead of time on the proposal form itself, which, if approved, would allow them to skirt the bidding process.

"You can name partners who are going to collaborate with you," Gasko said. "The federal government will provide us with feedback as to whether that's OK and whether it meets federal requirements."The federal money could also help pay travel costs for the council members, Gasko said.

Texas Watchdog placed several calls over two days to the governor's office seeking an agent from his office to speak about the council."I don't know that anyone in the governor's office is an expert for specific questions on this," a person answering the phone at the governor's office said, adding that there was no one from the governor's office who could speak on the issue.

Among the questions Texas Watchdog sought to have the governor's office answer:

Why does the governor's office feel that the council is not subject to the notice requirements of the state Open Meetings Act?
If this is an optional program, is there a plan to fund the continuing obligation when the three-year, $11.3 million grant expires?
Most states already have in place programs to address early childhood education and development. As Gonzales in Washington said, some of that funding can be moved over to this new program to fulfill the matching obligation. Where will that money come from in Texas, and what will be done to cover any deficits in other programs it might leave?
Perry has been an outspoken critic of money coming from the feds, at one point saying he was wary of spending federal cash on short-term programs that might stick the state with lingering obligations. In the case of the Head Start funds, the federal money will run out in three years. How does Texas' involvement in this program jibe with Perry's stance?

State Auditor John Keel scrutinizes dam safety, transportation spending, payouts for hurricane victims

Fri Mar 19 10:24:00 2010 CST

Editor's note: In recognition of Sunshine Week, Texas Watchdog is highlighting Texas heroes who have fought for greater government transparency. Learn more at www.sunshineweek.org.

Less than two years after its almost nonexistent dam safety program in Texas was laid bare by the State Auditor's Office, the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality is on target to have inspected every one of the more than 7,600 state regulated dams by August 2011.

During roughly that same time, the Texas Department of Transportation has recovered from a $1.1 billion accounting embarrassment that backed up almost $700 million in road projects like a train wreck. In response to a review by the auditor, the department reorganized to bring the accounting and project scheduling arms together. Nearly every one of dozens of auditor's recommendations were addressed.

And this summer, when the State Department of Housing and Community Affairs was more than two years and $300 million behind in paying out to agencies helping the victims of Hurricanes Rita and Ike, the auditor asked for spending changes that have, through this past week, been addressed.

During Sunshine Week when we reflect on the work of keeping government open and accountable to the citizenry, we thought it worthwhile to look at the work the state auditor's office, an internal but independent watchdog for any department or agency that receives and spends state tax dollars. By authority of Chapter 321 of the Texas Government Code and backed by a legislative audit committee headed by the lieutenant governor and the speaker of the house, the auditor inspects and investigates in the event of fraud or other misuse of state funds.

The auditor also recommends. The roughly five dozen reports produced by an agency that employs nearly 450 people with a 2010 budget of $12.9 million include hundreds of suggestions for eliminating waste, duplication and inefficiency in state government. As dispassionate as the language is, the reports are detailed and blunt.

John Keel, state auditor for the past five years, says he rarely feels the need to comment on his office's reports because he believes they speak for themselves.

Keel, however, has no legal authority to back his reports with penalty or sanction. That is left to the discretion of the legislature. A cursory look at three high-profile reports - on dam safety, transportation accounting and hurricane funding - over the past two years, suggests the auditor has enough authority to compel important and necessary compliance.

"No one likes to be audited, but there were issues that needed to be addressed," said Warren Samuelson, the manager of the dam safety division at the state Commission on Environmental Quality. "If I had to do it again, I would."

During the 2009 legislative session, Samuelson testified before a Senate natural resources committee that had the auditor's facts at its fingertips: Seven inspectors, nearly 1,100 bridges for each inspector, almost 1,700 bridges classified as high or significant hazard.

While no one knew of bridges in imminent danger of collapse, the problem was that the inspection schedule made it impossible to know if there was imminent danger. As long as the current system existed, the auditor had said, there existed in Texas a threat to life and property.

The auditor's report played a key role in the legislature approving funding to hire nearly two dozen full-time inspectors in 2010-11 and to add $2.5 million to a division budget that had been $590,601. The auditor had called for a reorganization of virtually the entire division. Next to nearly all the 19 pages of responses to the recommendations is the word "completed."

"I'd like to think our report helped them in their modernization," Keel said.

$1.1 BILLION ACCOUNTING ERROR IN SPOTLIGHT

Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst and then-Speaker of the House Tom Craddick called on Keel in early 2008 to find out just what was going on with the Department of Transportation.

Lawmakers wondered how an error representing more than a quarter of the $4.2 billion TxDOT thought it had on hand to spend through 2008 could go unnoticed. That the department failed to reveal the mistake for months gave rise to suggestions that somehow $1.1 billion in road building money was missing.

Keel's report, the work of more than six months, made clear the money was not lost nor stolen but had never existed in the first place. The report did not place a precise dollar value on the cost of such an enormous mistake, but said that in addition to the $692 million in road projects that had been slowed, the department had its amount of federal highway funds reduced by $36.5 million. Not to mention the amount lost in planning by the department and contractors.

The workers who put road projects into the pipeline and those who pay for those projects didn't talk to one another, the report said. In fact, there was a systemic communication problem in the department.

With the legislature watching TxDOT, set out to change its communication culture, spokesman Chris Lippincott said.

The design division now answers to the chief financial officer, who reports to the executive director, Lippincott said. A cash flow report is made monthly to the State Transportation Commission.

Keel said the progress has been good.

"There are a lot of flashlights looking around this place, and that's a good thing. We spend about $8 billion a year of the taxpayers' money," Lippincott said. "This got a big reaction, and we took immediate action based on the auditor's report."

HOME REBUILDING PROGRAM SCRUTINIZED

In the case of the Department of Housing and Community Affairs, its immediate action - to agree with virtually everything the auditor had to say about its problems distributing federal home rebuilding funding - has been followed by fitful success. As has been demonstrated by the stimulus funding of weatherization through Housing and Community Affairs, the pipeline from federal to state to local is often disjointed.

The auditor normally gives an agency or department up to two years to carry out its detailed suggestions.

If a follow-up report is necessary, as was the case with Housing and Community Affairs, it becomes a written statement of dissatisfaction.

Like the Weatherization Assistance Program, which is aimed at making low-income homes energy-efficient, hurricane funding has been plagued by an inability in the department to distribute the money to community groups and contractors. The follow-up report said much of the problem was the months it took to establish the eligibility of the people who are still waiting for about $305 million in hurricane funds through the Community Development Block Grant program.

Spokesman Gordon Anderson said the department got help from the Legislature this past session with a legal change to help speed along the eligibility process. A review of reports filed with the auditor show a department moving on all fronts to accomplish its task.

"The department's contractors at the local level faced significant challenges in speeding up assistance," Anderson said. "We feel we have overcome all of these obstacles and have set a much faster pace for housing restoration."

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

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Fed transportation secretary wants new leadership for Houston Metro, mayor says

Thu Mar 18 23:10:00 2010 CST

The message to Mayor Annise Parker from Washington: Find new leadership for Houston's public transit system.

Parker said U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood has asked her to find new leadership for Houston's Metro system. Parker announced this at a press conference this afternoon at which she released reports from five transition subcommittees and announced her nominations for the Metro board.

When a reporter asked Parker whether LaHood wanted Metro CEO Frank Wilson fired, she said "no." According to Parker, LaHood wants to see new leadership but did not ask her to fire anyone.

Parker did say that she also wants new leadership at Metro and has told her five nominees that as well. The nominees are Gilbert Andrew Garcia, Christof Spieler, Allen Dale Watson, Carrin F. Patman, and Dwight E. Jefferson.

The reports can be be viewed by following the links below:

METRO Report to the Mayor

Basic Services Committee Report

Committee on Regional Coordination Report

Funding Structure Committee Light Rail Punchlist Committee Report

METRO SBE Report to the Mayor

Texas universities cover brackets in tournament of lobbying expenditures

Thu Mar 18 10:24:41 2010 CST

And the winner is ... Texas A&M!

But I'm afraid we're not talking about the NCAA basketball tournament. We're talking about what university spends the most money to lobby the federal government. And in that contest, Texas A&M tops the nation, spending $900,000 last year to lobby in D.C.

This is the K Street College Classic -- a faux tournament bracket devised by the good folks at the Center for Responsive Politics (the OpenSecrets.org people). (K Street is the unofficial Main Street of the lobbying world in our nation's capital.) All together, the 64 schools in the tournament dropped $12 million on federal lobbying in 2009.

But Texas A&M's intra-state rivals didn't go home empty-handed from this tournament:

The University of Texas made it into the final 64, spending $128,136.
Private Baylor made it to the quarterfinals, spending $141,250, and beating out Sam Houston State University, which spent $34,285 and lost in the first round.
North Texas and the University of Houston also made it to the quarterfinals, spending $160,000 and $120,000, respectively.

Secret meeting in Big Spring? Activist leads effort to file suit after city held hasty meeting on tax issue

Wed Mar 17 18:30:00 2010 CST

Editor's note: In recognition of Sunshine Week, Texas Watchdog is highlighting Texas heroes who have fought for greater government transparency. Learn more at www.sunshineweek.org.

Sitting midway between Dallas and El Paso, Big Spring, Texas, grew up as an oil and farming town.

As the rural outpost grew over the years -- about 9 percent to more than 25,000 residents in the decade ending in 2000 -- its issues also grew. Public policy, once made among pals in a place where everyone knew everyone else, was now a more formal matter.

As can happen in blossoming municipalities, those policy makers were now watched more carefully to ensure they followed the letter of the law.

Enter John Huckabee, the 74-year-old chairman of the Concerned Citizens Council, a watchdog outfit created in 2006 to give residents who might disagree with the status quo a say in local matters. The council made news in February when it filed a lawsuit against the city for allegedly violating the Texas Open Meetings Act.

The Freedom of Information Foundation of Texas is aiding the citizens' council in their efforts and had this to say in announcing the lawsuit:

"We are in Big Spring today not to tell local citizens or their elected officials what to do," said Keith Elkins, Executive Director of the Freedom of Information Foundation of Texas, "but to ensure that government bodies comply with Texas laws on open meetings, and to ensure that taxpayers are granted every legitimate right to make important decisions for themselves allowed under Texas law.

Huckabee says he had never been much for politics, but as the town grew and prospered, he saw things he didn’t like.

“Like spending more money and new code enforcement and things like that,” says Huckabee, who has lost two bids for a city council spot in the last few years. “Now we’ve lost residents, and so we should take a look at what the government is doing.”

Indeed, the city population dipped 4 percent between 2000 and 2006, to settle at more than 24,000.

Huckabee says his volunteer group, a loose-knit coalition of locals both old and new, has been around for a few years and meets informally every few weeks.

“We’ve done some other things that help the town, like trash pickup and community activities,” says Huckabee, who came to town in 1961, worked for decades as a service manager at local auto dealerships and still runs Huck’s Automotive, a vehicle repair shop.

His group's lawsuit claims that the city failed to give the required 72-hour notice on a meeting to consider a citizen-filed petition requesting a public vote on a property tax rollback. The city council wants to maintain the current tax rate and claims the meeting was lawful.

According to the lawsuit, the city had received a petition calling for a tax rollback election on Dec. 18 and was required under law to affirm or deny the petition within 20 days.

That 20 days expired on Jan. 7, according to the complaint. The city posted notice of an “emergency meeting” six hours in advance of a Jan. 6 meeting. But the provisions of Texas law only deem an emergency in cases of a threat to public safety or an unforeseen occurrence.

At the meeting, the council deemed the petition invalid.

The suit asks the court to demand the city schedule a public vote on whether to lower the property tax rate.

The city, in a response filed Friday and reported by the local newspaper, claims the people on the citizens council are "trying to force their will ... on the other citizens of Big Spring."

For his trouble, Huckabee says he received a letter over the weekend from the city. It was from codes enforcement stating that his business has some items to take care of. Such notes are common in most places, but for Huckabee, the only question is the timing.

“I suppose that’s from the lawsuit,” he says with resignation.

Contact Steve Miller at stevemiller@texaswatchdog.org or 832-303-9420.

Gubernatorial candidate Bill White, who made big money from drilling firm, still won't release tax returns

Wed Mar 17 16:02:00 2010 CST

It's a frackin' good idea for candidates for high political office to make their income tax returns public -- and a story in this morning's Houston Chronicle shows why.

Former Houston Mayor Bill White, now the Democratic nominee for governor, has made a whole lot of money from a company that is being probed for pollution problems, the Chronicle reports this morning.

The ex-mayor is a director of BJ Services Co., a firm that is involved in drilling for natural gas by "fracking," or squirting water at very high pressure deep into the ground to try to get at the trapped gas.

Fracking works, but the high-pressure water can also have some yucky stuff in it, like diesel fuel and other chemicals. Some folks who live near fracked wells say their well water has gone from clear to blecch, as Mad magazine used to say.

Says a graphic on BJ's Web site just now: "No one fracs more shale than BJ Services." (Is it "fracing" or "fracking"? Until the dictionaries catch up with this new lingo, I'm going with "fracking," as in "politicking" and "picnicking.")

From the Chronicle:

White also received almost $830,000 in stock and another $245,000 in stock options. He will receive an additional $180,000 in stock and a retirement payout of $783,000 if the firm's merger with Baker Hughes is approved by shareholders Friday.

The issue of White's involvement with BJ Services came to light after he refused a Houston Chronicle request for his tax returns during his tenure as mayor. The relationship was disclosed in personal financial disclosure statements. White's campaign provided details on his BJ Services earnings Tuesday.

What does this have to do with income tax returns? White disclosed his connection to company on the annual personal financial disclosure statements he'd been required to fill out as mayor -- though the forms do not ask filers to spell out, in detail, how much they are paid. The White campaign supplied the detailed numbers to the Chronicle at its request.

It's a good thing they released the numbers -- White isn't legally required to make them public -- but they should go one step further. When candidates make their income tax returns public, they give the average citizen better knowledge of the depth of the relationships between the candidate and the companies they work for and the people they're in business with.

And until then, we'll have to live with the Bill White tax returns as imagined by Richard Connelly at the Houston Press' Hair Balls blog. Keeping up with the Kardashians? I always figured the mayor was more of a Real Housewives of New York City kind of guy.

Allegation: Signs posted by Borris Miles in heated Houston statehouse race violated election laws

Wed Mar 17 15:23:00 2010 CST

A former state House member from Houston who knocked off an incumbent state rep by 10 votes in the March 2 primary has been accused of violating state election laws in wording his campaign signs.

The signs posted by Borris Miles, who beat state Rep. Al Edwards by a razor-thin margin in the Democratic primary for state House District 146, are the subject of a complaint to the state Ethics Commission. A local watchdog group says Miles' campaign signs asked voters to reelect him when even though Miles did not hold incumbent status.

“He slapped those signs, asking voters to reelect him, all around the district,” said Justin Jordan, executive director of the group Texans for Ethics and Responsibility. “And the statute states you have to be a current office holder to do that.”

Jordon has also been active in Republican politics in Texas.

See the complaint filed by TEA here.

Miles and Edwards have been locked in a tug-of-war over the House seat for years now. Back in 2006, Edwards was the incumbent when Miles beat him. In 2008, Edwards took the seat back from Miles. And this year, the race was as tight as expected and even wackier than predicted -- the rivalry even got some national attention when Miles, responding to Edwards' challenge, urinated for a drug test during a radio broadcast. Edwards has asked for a recount (of the votes, not the drug test).

“Our team is in the process of investigating the allegation and ... we will handle everything legally and make sure all political procedures were followed correctly,” said Jeri Brooks, a Miles spokeswoman.

Texas Watchdog continues looking at local open government heroes for Sunshine Week: This time we journey to Big Spring, Texas

Wed Mar 17 12:00:00 2010 CST

This week Texas Watchdog is highlighting local Texas heroes who have fought for greater government transparency. Please come back all week to see different Texans profiled for their work in making government more open to us all. Some are government officials. Others are regular folks. All have succeeded at making government a little more open.

Today, read about an effort for open government in the growing town of Big Spring, Texas.

Read an earlier story about how school volunteer and mother Peyton Wolcott launched a national movement to post school check registers online. Also check out our video about how Houston public officials keep the public from hearing key speeches -- and how that is starting to change.

Video: Houston ISD's Sam Sarabia talks about new job overseeing elementary schools

Wed Mar 17 00:38:39 2010 CST

Houston ISD's new chief school officer for elementary schools is keeping himself busy. Sam Sarabia, former east region superintendent, talked to parents and teachers at various town hall meetings last week.

Trustee Paula Harris invited Sarabia to explain what his new position will mean for parents, teachers and students. Sarabia said his new role will be similar to what he did as a region superintendent, but with a focus on elementary schools.

Sarabia is one of three chief school officers named as part of a larger re-organization HISD is implementing for the 2010-11 school year.

State Rep. Sylvester Turner fined $4,500 by state Ethics Commission for inaccurate reporting of contributions, reimbursements, and personal funds for political purposes

Tue Mar 16 20:41:00 2010 CST

Sylvester Turner, longtime state representative from Houston, agreed to pay a fine of $4,500 for a variety of political contribution reporting discrepancies in 2007 and 2008.

In a 27-page report, the Texas Ethics Commission said Turner agreed to file accurate contribution reports after the Commission found that Turner had under-reported amounts, and failed to disclose correct reimbursements to staff as well as amounts of his personal funds used to pay for political expenses.

The report also outlines the responses of Turner, who was first elected to the Texas House in 1988, to allegations that he failed to correctly report contributions from corporations and labor organizations, failed to provide some information about out-of-state political committee donations and made other reporting errors.

Pay increases of $292K given to state workers whose jobs were improperly classified: State audit

Tue Mar 16 13:00:06 2010 CST

The Department of Criminal Justice, the Texas Youth Commission and the Department of Public Safety will be giving pay increases totaling $292,448 a year to 160 employees whose jobs were not properly classified.

According to a review just released by the state Auditor's Office, the 160 were among 451 program specialist jobs not properly classified by the three state agencies. These other reclassified positions did not result in a pay increase, according to the auditor's review.

A classification team for the auditor's office in July 2009 found that about half the agencies' program specialist positions were correctly classified, or 418 of the 869 positions. The agencies agreed with the auditor's recommendation that the specialists be reclassified as supervisors.

School volunteer and mother Peyton Wolcott starts national movement to post school check registers online

Mon Mar 15 23:43:00 2010 CST

Editor's note: In recognition of Sunshine Week, Texas Watchdog is highlighting Texas heroes who have fought for greater government transparency. Learn more at www.sunshineweek.org.

For the colonists in Boston, it took a British tax on tea. For Peyton Wolcott it took a $426 bill for public records from a school district.

Wolcott doesn't look the part of a revolutionary. She looks like the neatly tailored earth mother who makes her own turquoise jewelry and starts asking a few innocent questions after volunteering for her daughter's school fundraisers. But like the tradesmen and farmers who didn't look like American patriots, Wolcott responded to events by answering the call.

Her answer is peytonwolcott.com, a rummage sale of a Web site, chockablock with commentary, news stories and links to studies under the banner, "How we take back our children's education: one person, one question, one school at a time." At its core are links to repositories on the Web sites where 810 school districts, 408 of them here in Texas, display each and every check they write.

There isn't another clearinghouse for taxpayers to check up on their school district spending like it in the country.

Wolcott, 63, and a grandmother of two, lives in Horseshoe Bay, about 45 miles northwest of Austin. She seems almost surprised at how far her drive for openness in school spending has come since she started in October 2006.

"I didn't do it for a headline or to win a Pulitzer Prize," she says. "I did it because I thought there needed to be more transparency. I did it because I wanted things to be better. I did it because I thought it was the right thing to do."

Wolcott did it as much because she saw that the wrong things were being done in the Marble Falls Independent School District where her daughter went to school and the Llano Independent School District where she and her husband pay their school taxes. In 2000, while raising money to buy formal wear for her daughter's school choir, Wolcott began to wonder why other school groups got their outfits and uniforms paid for. She also wondered why she was hustling bake sales while Marble Falls school officials were going to all-expenses-paid trips to conferences at lavish vacation spots.

When she didn't get the answers she wanted, Wolcott made her first Texas public records request, a request she now admits was overly broad. The district told Wolcott it would cost her $426 to get all the records she asked for. The cost made Wolcott angry and rather than pay it, she decided to get more involved in the Llano district where her tax money was going.

This time, the requests for financial records were more focused.

Wolcott and her volunteer allies discovered that five of the school board members had direct business ties with the school district. The revelation galvanized voters in the district, and in 2004 all five of the candidates sought out and supported by Wolcott's group won seats on the board.

"We got every one of them to sign a pledge that they wouldn't do business with the district," Wolcott says. "People loved that."

When people outside the district started asking about the clean sweep of the Llano board, Wolcott decided the message could be better delivered with a Web site. Wolcott knew nothing about how to put one together, but she did know that she would make it a goal to lobby school districts to post check registries on their Web site.

"It took me about a year. I made every mistake you could make," she says. "But in November of 2006 Dallas ISD became the first major school district in the nation to post their check registry."

The check registries for every large school district in Texas except for Austin can be found through Wolcott's Web site as well as more than 400 districts in 35 other states. Wolcott's work has won plaudits from state Education Commissioner Robert Scott.

Nicole Conley-Abram, who has been the chief financial officer for Austin ISD for only a few months, said she has not yet heard from Wolcott, but will consider posting the district's check registry.

"I don't know why it wasn't done in the past. I haven't looked into that, but I'm all about transparency and the need for people to know how their tax dollars are spent," Conley-Abram said. "I have concerns about the resources and means to maintain the registry but, absolutely, I'll be looking into it."

Wolcott isn't relying on the inertia of the Web site to carry out her mission to get the registry of every school district in Texas posted. She travels, cajoles and buttonholes school officials, all out of her own personal check registry. Although she has been approached, Wolcott said she has no intention of running advertising on the Web site, the better to remain unimpeachable. Wolcott can't think of anything she would rather do.

"I've been blessed with energy and enthusiasm, and I don't need a lot of sleep," Wolcott says, heading off for another school meeting. "What else am I going to do, play golf or Bunco?"

Photo of a checkbook by flickr user heidielliott. Contact Mark Lisheron at mark@texaswatchdog.org or 713-980-9777.

Open meetings act flouted by State Board of Education: Quorum Report

Mon Mar 15 15:46:00 2010 CST

The State Board of Education violated state open meetings rules when it voted to support Gov. Rick Perry in spurning federal tax dollars for education and failed to notify the public by putting the resolution on its January agenda.

That's according to the Quorum Report, which is challenging what it says were two separate violations of the Texas Open Meetings Act. In addition to the January violation, the Quorum Report takes issue with the board's passage of a memorial resolution for a former board member that was not included on a recently published agenda.

Perry in January said Texas would not compete for the Race to the Top stimulus funds because of the onerous federal requirements that would go with the money.

Sunshine Week 2010: Come to Texas Watchdog all this week to see profiles of Texans fighting for open, transparent government

Mon Mar 15 13:21:47 2010 CST

This week is Sunshine Week, which was launched by journalists in 2005 as a way to get people talking about the public’s right to know.

The effort is more important than ever. A recent Scripps poll had some disturbing numbers about how Americans feel about openness in government.

From the Scripps Howard News Service:

Public cynicism that the federal government operates in an atmosphere of secrecy is as strong as ever, despite President Barack Obama's promises to make government information more easily available to the public.

A new survey of 1,001 adult residents of the United States found that 70 percent believe that the federal government is either “very secretive” or “somewhat secretive.” The largest portion of respondents, 44 percent, said it is “very secretive.”

That matches the worst rating the federal government received during the final year of George W. Bush's presidency.

Sunshine Week was initially launched by the American Society of News Editors, but it has grown into a larger movement.

From the Sunshine Week Web site:

Although spearheaded by ASNE, participation has quickly grown beyond newspapers and journalism groups to include students, teachers, private citizens, librarians, civic leaders, public officials, bloggers and a variety of nonprofit groups and associations. Sunshine Week also has expanded outside the boundaries of the United States to include participation in a variety of other countries.

Sunshine Week is funded primarily by a grant from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation of Miami. Sunshine Week also has received major organizational support from the National Freedom of Information Coalition, the Society of Professional Journalists and others who have partnered to ensure that it thrives and grows.

Texas Watchdog is participating too. This week we are highlighting local Texas heroes who have fought for greater government transparency. Please come back all week to see different Texans profiled for their work in making government more open to us all. Some are government officials. Others are regular folks. All have succeeded at making government a little more open.

Our first profile is of Horseshoe Bay activist Peyton Wolcott, who has spearheaded a national movement to post school check registers online. That profile coming soon to Texas Watchdog.

Grapevine officials accused of breaking sunshine law to hire Fred Hill as lobbyist for city

Mon Mar 15 12:01:57 2010 CST

The city council in Grapevine, near Dallas-Fort Worth, recently met behind closed doors to add their city to the list of municipalities that pay former state Rep. Fred Hill to lobby for them.

Open government advocates aren't happy about it. From this morning's Star-Telegram:

A government-transparency advocate criticized Grapevine officials last week for what he considers a "clear violation" of a state law barring secret deliberations of elected bodies.

At issue is the City Council's March 2 closed-door discussion of hiring a lobbyist to represent the city in Austin. Grapevine officials say they didn't break the law, but Bill Aleshire, an attorney with the Freedom of Information Foundation of Texas, said "absolutely it was a violation of the Open Meetings Act."

City Attorney Matthew Boyle, who signed off on the agenda, said the city is "as comfortable as can be" that no violation occurred.

You might remember Texas Watchdog's story from last year about Hill's trip through the revolving door, leaving the legislature and becoming a lobbyist for local governments near Dallas.

I'm a board member of FOIFT, and I share Aleshire's view. The public has a right to see and hear the debate over important issues and expenditures of taxpayer money, such as whether to hire a lobbyist.

Video: Houston ISD Trustee Larry Marshall on history of small schools as responses to desegregation; trustees keep subsidy in place

Fri Mar 12 16:07:00 2010 CST

Houston ISD will once again be funding small schools in the district with a subsidy after trustees unanimously voted for it Thursday.

The plan keeps the subsidies in place, but reduces the funding by $961 or less per school. Trustees voiced concerns about an earlier plan, which would have implemented cuts from about $100 to $14,000.

The smallest schools in the Houston Independent School District receive some funding based on a formula the Houston Independent School District's board adopted years ago, which is based on programs offered such as music or theater, and on organizational structure such as one set up around smaller class sizes.

The small-school subsidy debate does not seem to be over. Trustee Paula Harris said the plan the board adopted Thursday is just a temporary fix, not a solution.

Trustee Larry Marshall agreed with Harris. In the clip below, Marshall discusses the history of the small schools as responses to desegregation.

Primary source: View the investigation report into testing improprieties and missing equipment at Houston ISD's Key Middle School

Fri Mar 12 14:46:00 2010 CST

Houston ISD released an investigation report yesterday into employees and administrators at Key Middle School. The report identified problems including missing equipment and unauthorized fundraising, as well as teachers with access to the standardized TAKS test prior to the test dates. View the full report at the links below.

Summary

Part A

Part B

Part C

Part D

State Department of Criminal Justice violated policy on criminal background checks, needs consistent standards for contractors: State audit

Fri Mar 12 13:59:00 2010 CST

The Department of Criminal Justice needs to be more consistent in spelling out performance standards for contractors providing substance abuse treatment programs in prisons and halfway houses, according to a report by the state auditor.

The report, released today, said the Department allowed several of the contractors to conduct their own criminal background checks on their employees, contrary to its own policies for employment.

The Department also failed to require financial disclosure information from several providers, making it difficult to determine how efficiently those businesses are operated.

Dallas Morning News sheds light on University of North Texas president Gretchen Bataille's abrupt departure

Fri Mar 12 13:05:00 2010 CST

Last month when the well-liked president of the University of North Texas, Gretchen Bataille, abruptly resigned, no one really knew why. That's kind of a problem.

When the leader of a publicly-funded university quickly departs without any explanation from anyone, we're left to concoct the worst-case scenario. Was there some sort of scandal? Was she forced out? Is the university in trouble? What role did Lee Jackson, the former Dallas County judge, now chancellor of the UNT system, play in Bataille's departure?

It's hard not to speculate in the absence of facts, and with UNT students in an uproar over the popular president's departure, the cone of silence could not stand forever.

Fortunately, Dallas Morning News reporters Holly Hacker and Candace Carlisle sorted through a treasure trove of documents, obtained through an public records request, that sheds light on why Bataille packed her bags. Turns out, Bataille and Jackson were mired in a bureaucratic power struggle over who was the Big Man/Woman on Campus. The two disagreed on everything from IT issues to tuition increases, while Jackson was prone to lecturingBataille as if she were a rebellious teenager.

"You are not authorized to relocate any of UNT's activities or course activities... until all of the necessary information about your plans has been provided to the System and you have received my written approval," he wrote her in a letter on Jan. 29.

Meanwhile, Bataille clearly chafed under Jackson's managerial style, passively-aggressively venting to her underlings that she had no sway over theUNT chancellor. E-mailing three IT specialists that Jackson hired a consulting firm with "an outcome in mind," she noted that she would recommend the three of them for a particular job, "but I imagine that my recommendationswouldn't be followed."

Ouch.

In the story, Bataille doesn't dispute that there was tension between her and Jackson: "Communication is a two-way street, and it takes two people to communicate."

For his part, Jackson, who came to UNT with no experience in higher education, merely offered a statement acknowledging that the two had irreconcilable differences.