Wednesday, December 10, 2008

Accountability audit not cost effective?

I am told that an honest and impartial administrative
accountability audit has been rejected by the leadership
of the APS, not because they need to hide their institutional
lack of standards and accountability, but because
it would cost too much.


Let's take a look at the math.

APS' total annual budget is $1.3B.

Salaries constitute $.8B. Spending on salaries is fairly
straightforward with little room for graft.

Leaving $500M vulnerable to graft in a Finance Division
that impartial auditors, Meyners + Co., reported; was/is

  • lacking adequate financially sound policies,
  • lacking actual accountability to any standards at all, and
  • lacking record keeping; complete and accurate enough to send anyone to jail.


An decent audit would cost $150K.

Therefore, if the audit which would effectively end all of the
waste due to incompetence and corruption,
saved more than $150K, it would be cost effective.

$150K is roughly .03 of 1% of $500M.

If corruption and incompetence waste more than .03% of
the annual budget, the audit would save money the first year.

If the waste due to incompetence and corruption amounts to
less than .03% of the budget, the audit would not pay for itself
the first year.

However, the audit is a relatively one time cost,
which would return dividends year, after year, after year.

If 1% is wasted on an annual basis (a conservative estimate)
the district begins to see $5M in savings year after year,
after year.

Not to mention the non-financial rewards; increased efficiency,
increased effectiveness, and increased public confidence.

It would appear to be a no brainer.

The rub;
the consequences for the corrupt, and for the incompetent,
and for those who tolerate and enable their corruption and
incompetence.

And since they are the ones calling the shots in the APS,
guess what, no audit.

No matter how much sense it makes financially,
no matter how badly it is needed for every other reason.


As a point of reference;
the new board room, which is yet to be justified,
cost taxpayers about $1M; more than six times the cost of an
audit.

$1M
which would not have been wasted, if there were
administrative accountability verified by at least one honest audit.

Anyone who would care to challenge the math,
is free to do so, anonymously or otherwise,
by means of a comment on this post.

cc Winston Brooks upon posting.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

The salaries of those who have "no-show" jobs is graft as well. For instance, both Danny Moon's wife and daughter are charged with felonies for stealing money that they never worked for. Danny himself was rarely at school, and was paid over a 150 k a year that I can attest to from personal experience that he DID NOT EARN. His contract said he worked the equivilant of a 1.75 principal, so that would be at least 60 hours a week. He was at the school about an hour a day, look at the survielance tapes. Look at Larryu barker's tape showing him at the house he built with ill-gotten gains instead of at work where he was supposed to be. Those same surveilance tapes show how he lied about how many students were enrolled so he and his family could steal the extra money.

In addition, those who then retire after a long time in a "no-show" or "low-show" job then get a percentage from the Educational Retirement Fund. Fruit of the poisoned tree, in a way, just not the usual way it is considered.

A bad search is usually referred to as the poisoned fruit. In cases of graft and corruption in school governements, the poison is people who don't do their jobs, who are greedy and want something for nothing. They poison our kids and our ids with the idea that "stealing is ok if you get away with it and intimidate all the witnesses who won't go along."

I hope Danny Moon, his wife Lilian, and his daughter Ms. Peck all go to jail so that kids and adults in Albuquerque can know - "Oh, stealing is wrong even if you get away with it for years!"

Anonymous said...

In the "spirit" of that last response, schools like Manzano High are stuffing students into bilingual programs, sometimes against the student's wills, in order to collect on the big bilingual $$ per head in each class. Therese Carroll (present principal)and Tim Whalen (past principle) for years designated many kids as "bilibguals" to get these funds. Many of these kids were Irish-descent, blond-haired, blue/green-eyed kids with no Spanish speakers ever in the family.
They pilfered many $$ over the years, and I understand other schools do it to, so the admin thinks it's "ok"
There's big money to be made off of kids... if you know how to play the "game".

Anonymous said...

Same with SPED. Wasn't Debbie Hines responsible for a few million shortfall for over stating sped teachers qualifications or something along those lines. The Sped department is so top heavy it will bring down the entire system. So, is Debbie Hines still the director over there?

ched macquigg said...

I honestly don't know.
Perhaps another reader can enlighten us.