How do you make $8 million disappear? Ask Houston ISD.
After a recent report by the Houston Chronicle revealed Houston ISD had spent more than $709,000 on developing the largest bond proposal in Texas history, $4.4 billion, TPPF submitted a public records request to obtain all the documents related to developing the bond. In other words, tell the public what you spent, who got the money, and what it was for.
We received the same documents as the Chronicle, invoices totaling about $709,000. However, the documents show that in total the district spent more than $8.8 million developing the bond proposal, not just $709,000.
So, what happened to the rest of the money? We asked. But the district not only refused to make the documents public but has now officially requested that the Attorney General intervene and block the public from finding out.
After TPPF first published the story, the PR team for Houston ISD reached out wanting to make clear that the new administration was only responsible for the $709,000 and not the full $8.8 million.
As if that mattered. Houston ISD still has all the documents, and the new administration is the one that can make them public. So why are they covering for the old administration?
And if that’s not bad enough, here’s the crazy part: the only reason we know about the initial $8 million is because the new administration revived the original bond proposal and spent an extra $709,000 on it. If that hadn’t happened, there would have been no accounting for the original $8 million.
It would have just evaporated.
At a time when districts claim they are “underfunded” and taxpayer-funded consultants are weaponizing teacher pay, shouldn’t we have better accounting of the millions of dollars that seem to just vanish into thin air?
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