What is APS trying to hide?

On February 2, you will have the opportunity to vote in a bond issue and mill levy election.

There are two considerations that should guide your vote.

The first is whether the money is supposed to be spent on worthy projects.

The second is whether the money will be spent on worthy projects.

The "supposed to be" is self evident; there is a list of projects on which the money is supposed to be spent. The "will be" depends on the character and the competence of those whose job it will be to spend it.

There in lies the rub. Does the leadership of the APS have the character and the competence to spend $616M effectively, efficiently, and honestly?

There is room for doubt. Recent independent audits have revealed;

• Administrative evaluations are subjective and unrelated to step placement and promotion. Or, APS senior administrators have not demonstrated by any objective measure that they have the character and competence to spend tax dollars well.
• In the APS Finance Division, inadequate standards, inadequate accountability, and inadequate record keeping, a set up for corruption and incompetence if ever there was one.
• In the administration of the APS, "a culture of fear of retribution and retaliation" against whistleblowers.

The leadership of the APS refuses to discuss openly and
honestly

• their objection to any independent review of their business and management practices,
• their refusal to be held honestly accountable as role models of the student standards of conduct,
• their refusal to provide due process for whistleblower complaints,
• their refusal to agree to "any audit that individually identifies corrupt and/or incompetent administrators or board members", and of course,
• their ongoing refusal to surrender public records of the involvement of senior APS administrators in felony criminal misconduct.

So what are they hiding? Clearly they want to keep secret, individual administrative and executive incompetence and corruption.

More importantly, they want to keep secret the fact that "the system" is not set up to ferret out and end administrative and executive incompetence and corruption. "The system" is set up to hide and protect them as necessary.

Which is not to say that all executive and administrative incompetence and corruption is hidden. But they can hide what the want, when they want. Consider how they are hiding the truth about the corruption and incompetence in the APS Police Department, link, even in violation of the law, link.

And that's all they really need.