APS Whistle blower program tested

APS has a whistle blower program. It used to be called
Silent Whistle; it is now called Ethical Advocate.

Ethical Advocate is like Silent Whistle in that both are only
forwarding mailboxes. Neither offers any legitimacy to the
process except to strip the identity from complainants who
want to remain anonymous (out of fear of retribution and retaliation).

I have filed a complaint on the Ethical Advocate website; link.

I have alleged that two members of APS' Internal Audit Department deliberately misled an investigator from the New Mexico State Auditor's Office.

The investigator was there to determine whether the APS Audit Committee was indeed denying due process to more than 300 whistle blower complaints.

School Board Policy requires the Audit Committee to "review and approve" the administrative handling of every single whistle blower complaint.

To date, they haven't reviewed and approved of a single one.

One or both of the Internal Audit employees led the SAO investigator to believe that 317 individual complaints had seen the Audit Committee's review and approval.

In my complaint, I have demanded as resolution, that the truth be told to State Auditor Hector Balderas' Office; that due process is being denied to whistle blower complaints in blatant violation of APS School Board Policy.

The complaint against APS administrators will be adjudicated by APS administrators. A complaint against Supt Winston Brooks will be adjudicated by one of his subordinates. The remedy to the appearance of a impropriety; the obvious conflict of interest, is a promise from the executive branch, the school board, that they will review and approve the complaint; offering their personal guarantee that complaint was adjudicated free of administrative bias.

They won't actually do that of course, which is the whole point.

A response from the Internal Audit Department (the subjects of the complaint) was posted on the Ethical Advocate site the next day, it read;

Thank you for using Ethical Advocate.
Please allow 2 weeks (April 6, 2011) for a response.

OK, April 6th it is.