This is just a quick little teaser to let you know that a new post will be coming very soon. We will tackle the question of why it’s been two years since the last post and provide some new documents that show just how far these people are willing to go to silence anyone from questioning them or exposing their unethical and potentially criminal activities. Stay tuned because our journey down the rabbit hole is about to get back in to full swing and this time we are going to be taking on even more!
I know there were many of you (mostly the Kennedale Administration, school board members, school board member’s spouses, and those they need to suck at the teat of power for social standing in the community) hoping I had retreated from the fray, but I am more than happy to disappoint you on that one. Despite the continued onslaught of lies, twisting of the facts, and outright attacks on myself and my family, we will not shrink away to the bullying and retaliation these people use. It is sad that those in charge of teaching children the right way to do things do not exemplify those lessons. Do as I say and not as I do seems to be the more appropriate style they live because it’s obviously not teaching by example. They distort the facts and truth and attack anyone who disagrees or speaks out (as seen in how they behave every time someone runs against them in a school board election) and then seem so dumbfounded when it bleeds over into the children’s behaviors and attitudes. They quickly call for civility and say their behavior is only in the nature of politics or protecting the future (the future they want) for the district. But enough of their hypocrisy for today!
Let’s instead talk about how yet another administrator’s child works directly under them in the district with the full knowledge and support of the, asleep at the wheel, school board. Today we wade into the very deep pile of questionable mess that allowed Gary Dugger, Superintendent, to hire his own daughter in spite of well established nepotism policies. I will admit from the beginning of this that I personally don’t take pleasure in today’s topic because Stephanie Devlin (Stephanie Dugger before her marriage) is a genuinely kind and caring person. It is a shame that she did not choose to work in a district where her employment wasn’t such a questionable situation or where her father’s position called into question the legitimacy of her hiring. This isn’t a personal attack against the person of Stephanie Devlin (Dugger), but an expose on the nature of how, once again, leaders within this district bypassed or worked in the “gray” areas of policies to benefit themselves and their family members. I feel this speaks more to the behavior of Gary Dugger, the school board members, and Karen Furman than it does to Stephanie herself.
With that out of the way let’s get a few more housekeeping issues out of the way as well. I will start with the main argument that is inevitably used when trying to justify this administrations bypass of nepotism policies. They will argue that despite the fact that the Superintendent is the sole source of choosing the people within the district to RECOMMEND to the school board for hiring, the school board themselves is the actual entity that hires the employees for the district and that therefore insulates people such as Gary Dugger from being responsible or in violation of nepotism when hiring his own daughter. A second issue we can establish also is the fact that they will also say that a policy that was established allowing anyone who was in “continuous employment” before 2008 is allowed to remain in their positions within the district since the more strict nepotism policy went into effect in 2008. This is a kind of grandfather clause allowing the family member to stay as long as they were in their position before 2008. They would argue with me that both of these issues make the hiring and keeping of Stephanie Devlin (Dugger) completely above board. Well, though these legal loopholes might exist, there are still a few questionable activities that just don’t smell right when put to the test. In the thinnest allowances of the law they can justify their actions, but when you really look at how much tap dancing is required to make this allowance you begin to wonder just what the motives of the Kennedale leadership really is. Should the district be working so hard to justify hiring someone or should they focus on hiring people that won’t raise questions or possibly cross ethical bounds? The motivation for hiring a person should be to get the best possible person into the position to allow the district to provide the best resources for families, staff, and students, not finding legal ways of hiring family members.
I would like to tackle the first premise that is usually used to justify the hiring of family members in the district as employees. The fact that none of the school board members are personally related to Stephanie Devlin (Dugger) does not exempt the issue from the scrutiny of legitimacy. Though the school board members are the final say in the hiring of personnel for the district, it is unethical for a direct family member to be working in a position that answers to their relative. Though Stephanie Devlin (Dugger) immediately answers to Karen Furman, she is ultimately under the direct control and direction of her own father Gary Dugger as the Superintendent. There isn’t anyone within the district that doesn’t have to directly answer to the superintendent. This places her own father in a position to make decisions that will affect both her position and financial interests. Secondly to this topic, I would like to point out that it is required by policy that all hiring by the board comes from the direct recommendation of the Superintendent. Since there is no sign in any of the school board minutes that shows Gary Dugger recused himself from his required role of recommending his daughter to the board for hiring, he took an active role in her hiring. Though that might not reach the level of being illegal, it certainly is questionable if not unethical. When her current position’s contract comes up for renewal there is no indication that he has ever recused himself from the process of recommending her for renewal to the board either. That means each and every year that she has been a contract employee he has made an administrative decision to recommend her to the board. This places him in being directly interested and with the ability to affect the financial interests of his own daughter. This raises all kinds of ethical questions when looked at. As an end to why this is also questionable as far as the school board being the sole source of hiring, is the question of hourly employees. You see, it is the job of the Superintendent to hire the hourly employees. Those types of decisions are not made by board members. Based on the paperwork I have (which I will be providing readers with the ability to look at themselves) it is hard to tell whether or not Stephanie Devlin (Dugger) was hired originally as an hourly employee. It appears based on how the new hire documents are filled out, that Stephanie Devlin (Dugger) was originally an hourly employee. Her first real job within the administration of Kennedale ISD was as an assistant for Karen Furman. There is no indication that this was a contract position. Of course the district couldn’t find a copy of the job posting or provide any information as to when this newly created job was posted. Their official response was that they weren’t required to keep that type of information from that far in the past. (2007 is so long ago). If in fact her original job as a “Special Programs Assistant” was an hourly position, then she was directly hired by her father. That is all kinds of crazy, especially when you take into account that they couldn’t come up with any documentation showing the position was ever posted for any non-family members to apply for.
Now I would like to address the whole “Continuous employment” argument they want to make to justify her hiring. You see even if Stephanie Devlin’s (Dugger) hiring in 2007 was legally done, how she was made the District Interventionist Counselor raises all kinds of red flags. As I understand the nepotism policies that are posted in the school board policies and required for all government type of jobs, you can’t hire family. You can’t hire family and you can’t have family members in direct control of their relative’s position (whether financially or managerially). Next the policy does have the loophole that if a person who would be considered in violation of nepotism, but was already employed prior to 2008 they could continue their working in that same position. The problem is that any new position they were hired for after that would have to comply with the new standard of the nepotism policy in effect after 2008. The issue here is that she is no longer still in the same position she was hired for before the 2008 nepotism policy and its grandfather clause. She was made the District Interventionist Counselor on June 23, 2008. Instead of subjecting her to a new hiring position that she most likely wouldn’t have been able to get because of the nepotism policy, you can see from the memo from June 23, 2008, from Karen Furman to Gary Dugger, that they just changed the title of the job she was currently working for the district in. In that memo you will see that Karen makes several eyebrow raising statements. First she states that this is a position that is needed within the district “Full time”. This sounds like it was a brand new position that needed to be filled to help offer resources to the students and community. It is obvious also that this position was never posted for interview by anyone else either. Since the district could not provide any proof or paperwork that shows the posting or when it was made public for anyone else to apply for it. Again they used the statement that they weren’t required to maintain that information. Since all they did was change one job positions title into the other one it is safe to assume that this position was never advertised or interviewed by anyone else. It is also obvious that it was never presented to the school board as a hiring since it was just given to Stephanie by her “title change”. The next terrible thing you will notice that Karen states is that the title change will reflect the work that Stephanie has already been doing for the district. Since she didn’t pass her LPC (Licensed Professional Counselor) testing until May of 2008, she could not have been doing much counseling if any in the last month of the school year. If she were performing duties that required an LPC before then while she was labeled just a special program assistant, she was not qualified to be in charge of directing counseling services or providing them before receiving her actual license. The last thing this memo should make you question is how was such an important decision about a position needed by the district was allowed to be arbitrarily decided by the father of the girl being given the “title change”. This was obviously going to be a huge jump in pay and it was a contract position. This “title change”, new position, or any other information about the situation was never presented to the school board. This went from a simple assistant’s position to a district department position with the stroke of a pen. And the pen was held by the father of the person being given such a new and important position within the district.
Stephanie Devlin (Dugger) was on a counseling Intern license from 2008 until 2010 based on the documentation provided by the district. The question that needs to be raised is this, why would you choose to hire someone for a position that was so important to the district that had no experience and was not even a fully licensed counselor. This is a position that is in charge and control of all the major areas of the district’s counseling services. They are in effect the coordinator for all counseling services provided to the students and parents in Kennedale. Instead of publicly interviewing for an experienced and fully licensed counselor, Karen Furman chose to just make a “title change” so that Gary Dugger’s daughter could fill the shoes of this much more lucrative position within the administration. Was this quid pro quo? Since Gary Dugger signed off on Karen Furman paying her son as a vendor for translation services from 2005-2009, is that why Karen allowed Stephanie Devlin (Dugger) to work as her assistant and then change her title to allow her to become the District Interventionist Counselor? This situation could easily be interpreted that way. It is obvious that instead of interviewing and hiring her straight out for the new position they chose a much more questionable and possibly unethical route of the “title change” to circumvent the nepotism policies on the books.
Just because they can find a twisted way around the rules doesn’t make the actions ethical or in the best interest of the district. What might be seen here is a pattern of decision making within the administration that benefits themselves and their families, but doesn’t seem to uphold the clearest, most transparent, and ethical processes that should be expected of the leadership in a school district. For their part, the school board has never questioned the hiring of Gary Dugger’s daughter under him within the administration. There is nothing on the minutes from the last 4 years of school board meetings that shows anyone even raised the issue and whether or not it was in the best interest of the district to take part in a hiring process that raises questions about favoritism, nepotism, and unethical practices. The saddest aspect in all this is that no matter how wonderful a person Stephanie Devlin (Dugger) is, she will always be the superintendent’s daughter and the cloud of ethical and legal questioning about her “title change” will always be attached to her for it. She deserves a position in a district where she earned the position on the merits of her work and not on the position of her father. Kennedale deserves an administration and school board that follows its own policies and the policies of the state of Texas where there is no hint of questionable legal maneuvering or tap dancing. The community deserves leadership with clean hands where the question of friends and family being rewarded isn’t able to even be asked.
The documentation on Stephanie Devlin (Dugger) came in two different requests so some of the documents may be repeated in the two different packets of information.
After some extensive research over the last month, I have come across even more unsettling information about how business is run in the great administration of Kennedale ISD. Of course this is all under the watchful eyes of the Kennedale ISD school board. If you found it upsetting and unethical for an administrator to run a private (for profit) business out of the district at an unseemly discount, then you are going to be struck speechless as I peel back the next curtain. You will discover that there are children of administrators that have also profited from how this administration works within what can be described as an ethically “Gray” area of business, policies, and laws.
It is interesting to see how the administration and school board members (or their spouses) have gone on a rampage attacking me and my family personally (or threatening in a few cases) within the community, directly to us, or surreptisuously on their facebook pages. One thing that is the most obvious about it is that you will see they aren’t actually discussing the merits of the questions I have raised or the very unethical activities that have taken place and, in at least the I-zone situation, still taking place. They attack the messenger because they cannot counter the facts of the message that has been revealed for others to see.
Let’s break into the facts shall we. From roughly 2005 to 2009 Ian Furman (the son of Assistant Superintendent Karen Furman) was paid by the district for the job of translating written items from English to Spanish. I know that your first instinct would be, “What??? A child of an administrator was paid with district funds to perform services through the department that they run???” I was shocked as well. I am sure they will say that there was some kind of bidding process or proposal made and he was the cheapest or the “only” one to offer. But let’s look at the mere appearance of this matter. Translation services are not a rare commodity. In fact I would wager a bet that they could have had these same items translated by people already on the payroll within the district. I mean Kennedale ISD had ESL staff members (until the ESL program was dismantled in a special meeting) and there are several Spanish teachers already getting a paycheck.
Even if they weren’t able to provide the immediate service I am betting that Region XI would have been able to provide some already available and previously approved area sources for the translations services. It isn’t like that skill is so rare in Texas that Ian Furman was only one of a small few who could have offered this service to the department his mother ran for the district.
In an age of accountability, ethics, transparency, and limited funding, should the district even allow a direct family member of an administrator to be eligible to provide services of this manner? Even if they were able to justify it using a “gray” interpretation of nepotism policies by saying Gary Dugger approved him as the source of the district’s translation services and not his mother, it does not remove the fact that the work he was doing and being paid for was in under the direct supervision of his mother Karen Furman since she was head of Special Programs at the time. All of the invoices for his job are run directly through Special Programs. Karen or her personal secretaries are the ones who requested the payments or submitted the invoices. In some of the paperwork they are the original requestors or the first to approve the direct financial interests for Ian Furman.
The very first time that Ian was to be paid you can see that Karen approved the request that funding be set aside from various accounts specifically for translation services done by Ian Furman. That might not shock you since I have already stated she had a personal interest in his being paid. What should interest you is that she signed the request at the bottom of the page 2 days (9-16-2005) before he turned in his first and original letter asking to provide these services to the district (9-18-2005). Unless she has the super power to see into the future and knew he was going to be asking for this job or that he would even be the one to receive the translation job for the district, this seems a bit out of sorts to me. You will also see that one of the earliest bill sent to the district by Ian Furman states that he was doing work for the district on August of 2005 to October of 2005. This was a month before he even wrote his letter for the job and was approved to provide those services by his mother and Gary Dugger.
Next you will also notice on the paperwork that Ian was only in the DFW metroplex during 1 or 2 of the receipts he sent the district. All other times his payments and her receipts were sent out town or even out of the state. The majority of the time that Ian was “performing” his services for the district he was either in New Orleans, LA or Houston, TX. You mean to tell me that we couldn’t find someone local to do translation services?
The funny business with the paperwork doesn’t stop there. It would be very important to note at this point that not all of the funding used to pay Ian Furman for doing work under his mother’s department was from general funding (thanks to the generous taxpayers). They actually paid him out of federal funds. There are several pieces of paperwork that show in some ways he was paid for through Title 1, Title 2, and Title 3 funding. This might not mean much to the non-school personnel people, but what it says to those who know about federal funding is that if these activities are unethical or improper; this could jeopardize future federal funding for the district. There are very strict rules on how federal funding is to be spent. I would assume there are also very strict rules on who can be paid through this funding. I don’t know personally if there is any breach of law or ethics here. But, when dealing with the money that helps aide the students in a district, NO administration should take even a slight chance that paying their own child through the department they run could cost everyone to lose that funding.
Based on how the numbers seem to add up, and I will admit it is difficult to follow all of the math and all the various funding they pulled money from to pay Karen’s son, it looks like over the time span of 4 or 5 years Ian was paid close to $10,000. Again you can look through the paperwork I attached to the blog and do the math on your own. I am not an accountant so I could be wrong about that figure, I can tell you that it was in the bare minimum thousands of dollars.
Names and titles to note on the different paperwork that need some clarification would help when you look over the paperwork I am sure. Elementary Education was the Department Karen was in charge of before she took over almost all areas of education within the administration. Special Programs was the name of her department before she became the head of Elementary Education. Now her department is just Curriculum, Instruction, and Assessment (pretty much everything but paperwork and toilets). Paula Hommel, whose name appears as requestor or approver on many items was Karen’s personal secretary for several years before she was unceremoniously let go (not sure on all the details of that one so we won’t go into it right now). Wonder if she asked too many questions? Julie Zuniga was Paula’s replacement as Karen’s personal secretary. Gary Dugger is the Superintendent of the district and he seems to have signed off on many of the requests or payments. I am sure he was well aware of the relationship between Ian and Karen.
Each of the payment pages shows Ian listed as a vendor. He has been given a vendor number and the reference number on each payment sheet is just listed as Karen Furman. I have requested all vendor conflict of interest pages and there were none for him or his mother filled out. In fact as I have reported in other blogs there seem to be no conflict of interests at all in Kennedale based on the 9 pages of forms I have previously published when discussing the I-zone information. If you are curious to see those pages you can download them from the “Risky Business” entry in my blogs. So, it would seem that from 2005-2009 neither Karen Furman the administrator, nor her son, Ian Furman, the vendor filled out the conflict of interest paperwork that is stated in the school board policies posted online for anyone to see. I am sure there is a good explanation as to why the parties involved in these “vendor” transactions failed to meet the requirements of those policies. I don’t know if that is something that is even looked at when the district submits itself to audits, but I can’t imagine someone didn’t at least raise an eyebrow to it if I crossed their path.
I have to say I was a little taken back by the fact that Ian gave himself a raise in his second letter to the district in August of 2007 and at the very top of the letter you can see that it was approved by none other than his own mother. Yep right at the top was Karen Furman’s good old John Hancock. I can’t see how that doesn’t show a personal invested interest in monetary matters that affect both her son and the use of district funding.
Before anyone gets all riled up about this information I would like to point out that all of these FACTS were gained through the publicly available information I received through my open records requests to the district. All of the forms that you can download to check my statements were provided through the hard work of Rick Edwards and his office to fulfill my request (shout out). So before anyone goes making more hubbub and threats to try and silence my first amendment rights, they should really look to the issues that are completely held within these factual, publicly available documents. If the documents and the facts paint people within the administration and the school board in a negative light, I would suggest you look at the mess of your house instead of trying to attack the person pointing the mess out to the community. If the house didn’t have such questionable “messes” to begin with, then the district wouldn’t have to be so defensive and aggressive to the people who stumble upon the mess and points it out. I would also like to point out that I did alter the documents that can be downloaded in one way. When I asked for these documents, the district failed to redact and hide Ian Furman’s personal social security number. I took it upon myself to cover those numbers up to protect that information before posting the documents.
So, where does this take us and what questions does this raise? Well, for one thing I am beginning to see a pattern of questionable behavior afforded certain members of this administration. It also sets us up for the next blog were we will see that this may have set the stage for another administrator to also find a place within Kennedale ISD for their child. It looks like this is where the good old Green and Black started operating more in the “Gray”.
To access the Ian Furman Documents please click Ian Furman
I know I said in the last post it might be a little while before my next post, but I was not intending to take this long. As most of you would understand, I am sure, life gets in the way of things you mean to do sometimes. Today’s blog is going to delve into some of the inner workings of how business is done within Kennedale ISD. I have been doing a lot of research and paid a lot of money to get copies of documents from the district. I may choose to add to this blog as more records roll in and more information is learned.
We will forge ahead though with the information I have gleaned so far. Now I will tell you that the information I give to you today has been looked into and the claims I will make have the documentation to back it up. The only discrepancy that can be made on my information tonight might be the amount the owners of the business I-zone make but I will explain my reasoning and the possible fluctuations up and down once we get to that part. I promise you that in no way am I exaggerating or overstating anything. I will present to you the information I have discovered and expand upon it with my own opinion at times, but I will not lie about the risky little relationship going on between the district and a business with the full and complete knowledge of the school board.
I think we will get all the boring paperwork and legal logistics out of the way before we break into the juicy details of money! Let’s begin with the Secretary of State’s office here in Texas shall we. After paying a nominal fee, any person can access the business information and records of any business registered with the state of Texas to do business. Imagination Zone Inc. is a for profit domestic business here in the state of Texas. It is listed as being co-owned (50% each) by Jan Cleere and Karen Furman. This business was created around 2004 and has been active since then. They also have a state license to run a “for profit” daycare dating back to 2004 at the site of Delaney Elementary School in Kennedale. They currently hold 2 licenses to run their daycare business at both Delaney and Patterson Elementary schools in Kennedale, TX. I state all of this because the school board and the administration would like to make it sound as though this is some type of non-profit or some kind of benevolent program that is only concerned about the children and the families of Kennedale ISD. In fact in the the video of the June 21, 2012 school board meeting several board members and even Gary Dugger the superintendent talk as though it’s a charity or that the school district itself in some way seems to be offering these services as an extension of their duties. This cannot be further from the truth. This is a PRIVATE business owned by Jan Cleere and Karen Furman. This is a domestic FOR PROFIT business owned by Jan Cleere and Karen Furman. Why create a business, make it for profit, unless you are planning on making profits. I am a strong believer in capitalism. I applaud anyone who starts a business and makes it successful. I am not demanding that I-zone be removed from the schools though once the truth is out there I can’t imagine that things shouldn’t be changed in some way. As you will see there are some things going on here that are not appropriate. This business does not exist to benefit the district, it is here to benefit the owners and there are some questionable actions taking place that make this business a boondoggle for Jan and Karen. I apologize if this blog is not as witty and engaging as others, there is a lot of meaty facts and documentation to explain and reveal so sometimes it gets a bit stale. I promise though that the revelations are astonishing and worth all the rigamarole you have to put up with to get there! Stick with me!
I know what might perk you up a bit. Let’s talk about money! Everyone loves money and in these hard economic times it is at the forefront of all our minds. The district rents out its facilities. That is no shocker. Anyone who has driven by the PAC has seen it filled with competitive dance troops over the years who have rented the building or seen some of the amazing theater production put on by the Mansfield Community Theater Company (shout out to you great actors!). The paperwork is available to download from the district’s own website and lists the amount each room or facility costs to rent for a certain amount of time. Now you will hear on the video from the June 21, 2012 meeting that Gary Dugger states that they cut special deals when it only deals with “our kids” or is something that benefits “our students.” I hope you can pick your jaw off the floor when I tell you that this is in fact not true. I know, I know, I can just see your shocked face now as you learn that Gary Dugger would be misleading, but it’s going to be ok so stick with me as I prove to you how false this statement is.
First, there is a difference between something for the kids such as a PTA event or a Band Booster event. These are non-profit, school sponsored organizations and therefore are given special treatment (even though they still charge them for clean up and a cafeteria worker on sight when needed). But I-zone is not a non-profit and it is not a school organization. It (as you will recall and hear from me a million more times) is a private, for profit business. This would be the same as Burger Box using the cafeteria to make lunches for the students. Can you imagine the district giving special treatment to the Burger Box to come in and do lunches? Hold on to the Burger Box example because we will come back to it.
Karen Furman and Jan Cleere pay $175 a month to use whatever rooms they want per school. Their total rent to the district for unlimited access to Patterson and Delaney Elementary schools is a grand total of $350 a month. That wouldn’t even cover the electricity they consume in that time. But again, they will tell you it is for the “our students”. How funny to then learn that a Special Ed teacher at Delaney offers piano lessons 6 hours a week at Delaney after school. The only people receiving these lessons are Kennedale ISD students. In fact many of them are in I-zone. This seems to meet the exact same criteria for “our students” that Gary Dugger spoke of. Bet you can’t guess what’s coming. Yup, you guessed it! This teacher pays FULL price to use the one room he offers lessons in. He is charged $90 a week. You see the standard classroom rate is $60 for 4 hours. Well he uses 2 extra hours so he pays an extra $30 a week for that. That means since most months have 4 weeks, he pays $360 a month to use one room at Delaney to teach Delaney students piano. He pays more a month for one room than Jan Cleere and Karen Furman pay to run their entire daycare at both elementary schools, and they get unlimited access to any number of rooms based on the contract signed with the district. How is that for “Special Treatment.”
So how much should they be paying? How much money is the district eating or as some would call it “subsidizing” this private business? Well, I was at the school board meeting and I thought I would limit my estimation to just the rooms talked about by the board members and Mr. Deal Maker Dugger. There were 4 places mentioned that they use, even though their contract gives them full reign of the properties. The cafeteria, gym, playground, and computer room. I looked at what each room costs based on the facility rental agreement online at the districts website. Cafeteria for 4 hours is $175 x 4= $700 a week for just the cafeteria. The Gym they were said to be using for 4 hours is $150 x 4= $600 a week. Computer lab (classroom rate) for 4 hours is $60 x 4 = $240 a week. Playground (classroom rate since it wasn’t listed as a price and I chose the lowest price rate isn’t that nice of me) for 4 hours is $60 x 4= $240. I multiplied everything times 4 because they are in the spaces between 15 and 16 hours a week. this comes to 700 + 600 + 240 + 240= $1,780 a week for just one campus. multiply $1,680 x 2 = $3,560 for both campuses for one week. Assume there are an average of 4 weeks a month and $3,560 x 4 = $14,240.
So in short let’s break it down to this statement: they pay $350 a month if they were made to pay just as any other “outside”, for profit business they should owe $14,240. This doesn’t include cleaning up since they also throw that in as an extra perk for free to them too. I believe the logic is that the cleaning crew is already there so why charge extra for them to have to clean up the kids messes from legitimate school day activities and the mess they make after hours while attending this private daycare. Assume there are 9 month in the school year and the prices get even wider in amounts. In 9 months (the whole time I-zone exists) they pay a total of $3,150. The actual cost for these rooms for 9 months would be a total of $128,160. Now I know what you are thinking. You are saying WOW! no wonder the district is giving them a discount (all be it way WAY too big of a discount). They couldn’t make a profit with that kind of money being owed! Well that is where you are greatly mistaken my friends.
Let’s talk about profits! Now this is where I will admit to you that when I am figuring the rent owed and the money the daycare takes in I am using what would be the ultimate numbers for them. Because weeks aren’t always equal in a month were they may pay for 5 or pay for just 3 (In the case of Christmas break time) I have to find a way to standardize the amount so they are useable. There has to be constants to get a general picture of the money trail here. All the numbers might fudge a little high or a little low year to year based on the number of weeks in that school year or the number of kids who attend that month. The variation would not be so great as to put the numbers off by more than $10,000 one way or the other. Which when dealing with hundreds of thousands of dollars as Karen and Jan are isn’t significant. It is a 10% either over estimate or under estimate.
Ok that disclaimer out of the way let’s talk profits. Listed on the liscense for their daycare I-zone claims to service 130 kids, 80 at one campus and 50 at another. Their website states that parents pay $65 a week for child care. Now I am aware they have some kids who get a discount of $5 for having a sibling, but let’s look at what their optimum revenue is for the 130 kids. They may even have more kids than that, but they are only listed in the state records as these numbers so we will go with 130. Here is how the math plays out. 130 kids at $65 a week = $8,450. $8,450 x 4 weeks a month = $33,800 a month. $33,800 a month x 9 months of school= $304,200. Assume 1/2 goes to pay workers and costs and that leaves around $152,100 for the two owners to split between them. Meaning they would be getting around $76,050 before taxes but still a lot of money considering how little they pay for rent. This is optimum, the numbers could move down slightly if fewer kids came some weeks but still a lot of money. Again in full disclosure and honesty (not something you will get from KISD or their board a majority of the time) I want to again say that there could easily be a $10,000 over or under estimation here because number of kids fluctuates and some get a $5 discount or might half time it a week or so. But even with a little bit of give or take those are astounding numbers!!!!
So now you see why paying only $3,150 is a ridiculously low amount for this profitable business. The taxpayers are subsidizing a business that does not need help making a profit to stay viable which is the only reason a private business should be receiving help with taxpayer money to begin with. A good question to ask though, is when was the role of a School District to subsidize private businesses? I can’t find it anywhere that states schools in Texas were to be engaged in using taxpayer dollars to defer the costs for privately owned business.
I am in possession of an email sent by Mark Biondi to the head of non-profit private Christian school who used the athletic facilities at the Junior High because they did not own their own gyms or football field. The topic was whether or not there could be discount to use the fields and gyms. Mark Biondi stated that the rates were set by the school board and were firm and that there could not be any types of discounts made. Funny that a for profit business can get a heck of deal off those standard rates but a non-profit private Christian school pays full price!
The last and final area I think we should hit involves why the whole situation is a conflict of interest if not an out right corrupt enterprise for the district to be involved in to begin with. Let’s talk about the owners. Karen Furman is an Assistant Superintendent for the Kennedale ISD and Jan Cleere works with (for) her in the administration as the district’s testing coordinator. You won’t find that piece of information anywhere on their website and rarely are they tied to this private, for profit business. Why does this matter? They work in the administration that makes the contract for the relationship between them and the district. This is a clear conflict of interest. There are no conflict of interest forms filled out on behalf I-zone or by Karen and Jan on file with the district showing this very inbred relationship. On top of that with the extreme amount of disparity between what everyone else would have to pay and what they are actually paying makes this a very, very questionable relationship. This is by definition an example of corruption where “certain” people based on their positions receive favorable treatment at the expense of the taxpayer. And if this special benefit also includes any equipment or anything else paid for with federal funds (such as computers, video equipment, programs etc) how is this not mismanagement or misappropriation of federally funded money, equipment,and other items.
I know for a fact, because I witnessed it, that teachers would receive emails on their Kennedale ISD email accounts reminding them of duties, responsibilities (signing their time sheets), and general information from Karen or Jan’s KISD email accounts in the middle of the dealing with I-zone. That bothers me for two reasons. 1.This is theft of school property for use of their private business and 2.why were these women conducting I-zone business in the middle of the school day when they were being paid generous salaries to be doing Kennedale ISD work. It wasn’t until a year or so ago that they spread the word to workers not to do this anymore because questions had been raised about the practice by people. And lets not even get into how when I first started working at Kennedale ISD, I-zone was advertised on the front of the school districts website. No other daycare services that were available to Delaney students (all off site private companies NOT owned by Kennedale administrators) were listed on the site. Bet they didn’t pay for the use of the school website to advertise their business back then. Oh don’t worry it isn’t on the website anymore and I am sure they will all have selective amnesia as to it having been there in the first place.
When I asked for the rental agreements and contracts covering I-zones relationship with the district to find out just how little they were paying each month I discovered some very disturbing information. It seems that there are all kinds of facility use agreements dating back to 2006 for everyone and everything except I-zone. I was informed that the earliest agreement or paperwork that existed began in 2010. If everyone else had to fill out this paperwork to use the facilities why didn’t I-zone. Where were the legal protections keeping the district from being sued if something went wrong or insuring that I-zone was properly insured and would accept the responsibility of something did go wrong? Unless Mr. Edwards withheld those documents clearly asked for under the Open Records Request I made, then they don’t exist as he stated in his official response to my request. So how can there even be a guarantee that before 2010 I-zone was even paying rent for their use of the facilities at Delaney Elementary? I am currently working on getting the financial and budgetary paperwork to answer that exact question.
The conflicts don’t end there though. Look at all the people who are involved in the highest levels of I-zone and where they work in the district or their connection to the district. The current director is a man by the name of David Glenn. He is the husband of Dr. Missy Glenn. Dr. Missy Glenn is the coordinator of Federal Programs in the administration building for Kennedale ISD. She and Karen Furman received their Doctorates together at TCU and then she immediately recieved a newly created job in Kennedale (convenient little coincidence I’d say) working for her good buddy Karen. The former director before Mr. Glenn and now just the book keeper for I-zone is Christy Miller. Christy Miller is the K-8 instructional technologist in Kennedale ISD, which is another administration position. She, Jan Cleere, and Karen Furman (that 1 or 2 years Karen actually taught in a regular classroom) taught next to each other at Delaney. That position too was a newly and specially created position around the same time Christy moved back to Texas from California needing a job. My, my, my, isn’t this just the happiest of little administration families running a private, for profit business out of the very schools they are in charge of overseeing.
I would like to invoke the Burger Box example one last time. This is how it shakes out and ask yourself if this is how Kennedale Administration and school board should be doing business with taxpayer facilities and money. This same situation would be equal to Gary Dugger, superintendent extraordinaire, owning the Burger Box ( a private burger joint in Kennedale) and having a contract with the district for them to sell “snacks” after school to anyone at Delaney or Patterson that wanted them. I mean after all that is a service to KISD students. They need a snack after a long day of learning and they might not get dinner until much later. This is “for the kids.” They would be given the facilities at a fraction of a fraction of the cost. The district would give them the food to make for free and let them keep all the profits from making and selling the food, minus of course that monthly few dollars they pay in rent. Sound like a good business investment for the tax dollars in Kennedale? Because by discounting the rates so much compared to what they would charge anyone else that wasn’t owned and run by an administrator, this is exactly what Gary Dugger and the Kennedale School Board members are doing. Wondering yet why Kennedale taxes are some of the highest in the area? They’ll tell you it is to cover the cost of salaries. I would agree. It seems to cover the salaries that Jan Cleere and Karen Furman pay themselves from I-zone since they aren’t paying that money to the district to cover the true cost of doing business with the district.
I want to state once again that I am not opposed to a business making a profit. In fact, I am and always have been a very dedicated capitalist, but I do not believe that this situation is appropriate. This situation should never have happened. It is one thing to make an honest dollar. It is quite another to make a lot of dollars through “special” deals made through very unethical, conflict of interest filled agreements on the taxpayers’ dime. I will attach the YouTube video where you can hear in their own words that I-zone receives special treatment and just how hard the school board and Gary Dugger fight to protect it from any scrutiny. The attitudes by Janet Adams (brown haired on the left) and Rhonda Barnes (blonde on the right) are rude and confrontational. They talk about Mansfield’s daycare but fail to mention that Mansfield ISD actually owns that program and it isn’t a private business. The question that I will leave you with is this: Nothing in Kennedale comes free! You always have to pay in some way for special treatment. In a good ol’ boy system, I only scratch your back if you scratch mine. What kind of payment or personal benefit (of any kind: monetarily or otherwise), if any, are Gary Dugger, Rhonda Barnes, Janet Adams, Mike Walker, Joe Taylor, and Lori Glovier receiving for the many years of Jan Cleere and Karen Furman receiving such a sweet deal on their successfully profitable PRIVATE, FOR PROFIT business?
Here is the documentation for I-zone. Please click Here
Here is a link to the low quality version of the video:
Here is the higher quality version of the video so you can read the green tiles better. It is just a condensed version of the Money facts from the blog:
October 24, 2014
Bryan Kuykendall
Extraordinarily Ordinary 