LOCAL & STATE
John Neal
Illustration, The Oklahoma Eagle
On Feb. 26 Oklahoma State Auditor and Inspector Cindy Byrd launched a long-awaited state audit of Tulsa Public Colleges, and it documented a variety of monetary irregularities, together with bonus funds made to TPS workers by the TPS Basis that bypassed faculty board authorization.
The 45-page report additionally gave particulars concerning the defrauding of TPS of greater than $800,000 by former Chief Expertise and Studying Officer Devin Fletcher. Fletcher was later criminally convicted and ordered to pay restitution.
The excellent evaluate of TPS’s funds dates to July 2022, when Tulsa Public College Board members Jennettie Marshall and E’Lena Ashley requested that the state audit the TPS district. Their request was thought-about uncommon and controversial, primarily as a result of it required motion from an unlikely ally — Gov. Kevin Stitt.
Marshall and Ashley, each African American, had lengthy been vital of monetary data supplied to the varsity board, continuously complaining at board conferences of incompleteness or lack of transparency. On the time, the 2 had been seen as outliers in a board that appeared tired of pursuing eager oversight of monetary transactions made by TPS officers.
However throughout a gathering in the summertime of 2022, then TPS Superintendent Deborah Gist informed the board that tens of hundreds of college district {dollars} had gone lacking. That startling revelation in flip prompted TPS Marshall and Ashley to make the forensic audit request. The investigation of the lacking funds finally resulted in a former high-ranking faculty official’s prison conviction. It could be two and a half years after the preliminary audit request that Byrd revealed the audit findings.
The audit interval was from 2015 to 2023. Greater than 1,400 monetary discrepancies had been discovered over the eight years. Apart from the defrauding and bonus funds, a few of the extra salient findings within the audit had been the next:
- A systemic lack of inside controls and administration over the buying course of.
- Invoices to TPS continuously lacked correct authorization or proof of precise prices, had been insufficiently itemized, or lacked explanatory element.
- Board insurance policies had been violated or circumvented in some buying processes.
Digging deeper
The audit report supplied dozens of examples of particular person monetary transactions that circumvented board buying insurance policies or violated correct accounting practices, reflecting an absence of acceptable monetary administration and inside controls. The part of the report that particulars these transactions is essentially the most protracted and wide-ranging.
A cautious examination of the examples reveals that a lot of the monetary discrepancies occurred within the early to mid-term of the Gist administration from FY 2018 to FY 2020. Gist resigned in August 2023. The college board appointed Dr. Ebony Johnson everlasting TPS Superintendent in December 2023.
The report makes this remark concerning the present administration in regards to the buying course of discrepancies. “The District has acknowledged its noncompliance with buying insurance policies and legal guidelines. Steps have been taken to evaluate and enhance these processes. Steering memos have been issued to steer the corrective course of.”
The report a number of occasions assigns a few of the blame to the TPS College Board for inadequate oversight. Nonetheless, the report didn’t specify the actions the board did not take or suggest any board coverage adjustments. It means that the “board ought to oversee and approve these efforts to boost buying coverage compliance and make sure the future effectiveness of associated insurance policies and procedures.”
Intensive Fraud Revealed
Whereas the State Auditor’s report discovered many irregularities within the buying and fee processes over the eight years underneath evaluate, just one set of transactions resulted in a diversion of funds constituting “fraud”. Nevertheless it was huge.
The case was first recognized in June 2022. At the moment, the Gist administration thought the lack of TPS funds was lower than $20,000 and accepted the resignation of 1 worker.
Nonetheless, over the next weeks and months, Byrd, working with native and federal legislation enforcement officers, discovered that the transactions and schemes had been rather more intensive and concerned a number of distributors and people. Ultimately, in line with the report, $824,503 had been diverted from TPS and the Basis for Tulsa Colleges.
The report identifies Fletcher, former Chief Expertise And Studying Officer, because the perpetrator of the fraudulent scheme. The ruse that he created concerned paying false or padded invoices to 5 distributors, primarily for alleged consulting companies. The report identifies 5 different TPS executives as “additionally approving invoices or funds.”
In October 2023, Fletcher pled responsible to conspiracy to commit wire fraud. He was sentenced to 30 months in jail and was ordered to pay over $600,000 in restitution. Gov. Stitt has requested the Oklahoma Legal professional Common to research whether or not different fees ought to be introduced. Days after the report was launched, TPS board members Marshall and Ashley known as for a radical evaluate of the district’s insurance policies and potential additional investigations and actions.
HB 1775 violations
Gov. Stitt expanded the scope of the audit request to transcend Marshall and Ashley’s request and embrace TPS compliance with controversial state legislation HB 1775. The Oklahoma Eagle has reported extensively on HB 1775, signed into legislation in 2021, and its meant efforts to suppress the truthful instructing of Black historical past and racial bias coaching. Tulsa Public Colleges’ accreditation was downgraded in 2022 for an alleged violation of the statute, nevertheless it bolstered court docket efforts to overturn the legislation. (See https://theokeagle.com/2022/09/03/tulsa-public-schools-case-bolsters-legal-efforts-against-racially-discriminatory-law/) Stitt’s request of the State Auditor was to find out if TPS had dedicated further violations.
Stitt additionally requested the auditor to find out if TPS “might have carried out a coaching,” referring to HB 1775, “which banned the instructing of vital race idea.” HB 1775 makes no reference to “vital race idea.” The legislation bans the usage of eight “ideas.” Following a evaluate of TPS coaching paperwork, primarily obtained by distributors, the auditor report states, “…the total extent of TPS’s compliance [with HB 1775] was undeterminable.”
The auditor doesn’t point out that whereas the audit was underway, a federal District Decide had issued an injunction order halting the enforcement of key provisions of HB 1775 as reported by The Oklahoma Eagle in July 2024. (See https://theokeagle.com/2024/07/01/judge-rules-educators-may-teach-racial-history/)
DEI probe
Variety, Fairness, and Inclusion (DEI) packages search to safeguard the therapy of minorities from recruitment and software by way of retention and promotion in employment, schooling, and different social or financial arenas. They arose within the wake of racially motivated violence, significantly George Floyd’s homicide.
As beforehand reported in The Oklahoma Eagle, a September 2021 survey discovered that “Greater than eight in ten (83%) of the 656 responding organizations say they’ve taken motion on DEI initiatives in 2021, a 13-percentage level improve from 2020.”
Since that point, there was an intense backlash in opposition to this system. (See https://theokeagle.com/2024/02/17/minority-opportunity-program-facing-elimination/ ) In December 2023, Gov. Kevin Stitt issued an Government Order prohibiting DEI packages in state universities and businesses. Nonetheless, neither HB 1775 nor state administrative guidelines ban DEI packages in public colleges.
However, in an obvious effort to suppress DEI packages, the Oklahoma State Division of Schooling issued an order requiring faculty districts to report “DEI-related expenditures” made throughout the 2022-2023 faculty 12 months. Superintendent Gist responded by saying there have been no such expenditures.
In her audit report, Byrd investigated the TPS response.
As knowledgeable by the OSDE order, Byrd broke the evaluation into particular person “ideas of variety, fairness, and inclusion.” Byrd discovered that “TPS applied fairness rules by redistributing sources amongst colleges… and incorporating this equity-based ideology in instructing and studying practices.” She concluded that “TPS didn’t appropriately report all DEI associated expenditures.”
TPS response
Tulsa Public Colleges supplied The Oklahoma Eagle with its preliminary response to the audit’s findings and a report on adjustments being made within the district’s monetary administration. Whereas the district broadly agrees on areas that want enchancment, it continues to hunt clarification on a few of the state audit findings and challenges others.
In a press release, Ebony Johnson, TPS superintendent, acknowledged that “a lot of the objects we’ve already addressed throughout the two-and-a-half-year course of the audit.” Johnson added, “we’ve taken daring motion with real-time oversight, instituted sturdy monitoring methods to make sure adherence to coverage and procedures, and mandated new protocols that streamline verifications and approvals.”
TPS additional supplied a listing of actions taken earlier than receiving the audit and a 14-page report responding to the preliminary State Auditor and Inspector findings. In a press convention held simply days after the audit report’s launch, TPS Board members Marshall and Ashley vowed to proceed to press for vigorous corrective actions and extra sturdy district board oversight.
Throughout a press convention on March 2 on the Greenwood Cultural Middle, Marshall and Ashley praised the audit report as a very good begin. However they stated that the probe should go additional and known as for a forensic audit.
“I do know the governor has stated he needs individuals prosecuted,” Marshall informed the press convention. “If a forensic audit had been to happen, I believe much more can be revealed as nicely.”
