Not charging for documents was a huge departure from previous years. I attribute this to the fact that the leadership of the district has changed. You could say that the district is Under New Management. The days of information hiding and denying wrong doing are on the way out. The truth will prevail and the facts will be more readily available as the school board begins running the district rather than the Superintendent.
A small group of really bad apples in the bunch has stained our school district's reputation for years to come. The disdain for those individuals will take years to be forgotten, if ever for some of us who were caught in their crossfire. Individuals in the federal agencies who have been working on bringing our district into compliance for the last 5 or 6 years are fully aware of what's been uncovered in our district. They are amazed at what's been going on in our district for so long.
It's going to take quite some time for all of the issues and facts to surface and for our district to rebuild. But, the district is starting to move in the right direction. The new superintendent search person referenced several times at last night's meeting how what has happened recently in our district may very well affect our search for a new superintendent.
Fox provided copies of all of the credit card statements with transactions for the 2013-2014 school year. After a quick review, I noted to the district's custodian of records at last night's school board meeting that the DISCOVER and AMEX credit card statements will need to be rescanned at a higher DPI in order to make them legible. The VISA was legible but rescanning would help.
Making these documents available to the public is a great start towards improving transparency and regaining the trust of the community.
Thank you to the Fox C-6 School Board for doing the right thing in providing these documents!
Credit Card Statements Beg For Supporting Documentation
I think the majority of the community will have a tough time understanding how many times Dianne Critchlow paid for gas and food using her credit card in the 2013-2014 school year. It will lead to more Sunshine requests for supporting documentation and statements from previous years. There are also a lot of airline ticket purchases for air travel on a lot of the administrator credit cards supplied by the district. Those will need to be reconciled as well.
Reviewing the credit card statements and lack of description on Bill Payment Reports makes a State Audit a necessity. I believe most Fox C-6 taxpayers will be quite vocal after reviewing the credit card statements which will lead to even more questions.
What does current Fox C-6 School Board Policy #3125 say about using school district credit cards?
Policy 3125 – Credit Cards (05/97)Fast food restaurants and bars and grills are probably NOT considered "instructional materials". It appears that Superintendent Critchlow's use of her district supplied credit card violates current school board policy.
School district credit cards will only be issued to employees upon the approval of the Board of Education. Use of the credit card will be limited to the purchase of instructional materials, items related to the improvement of instruction or materials related to capital improvements or supplies.
Below are links to some of the documents supplied in my recent Sunshine request.
2013-2014 Credit Card Statements
Settlement and Release Agreements
with Fox C-6 and Contracts