APS squandering millions on cost-is-no-object legal defenses

In the Journal this morning, link, news that the leadership of the APS, who has seen their (our) insurance premiums raised over uncharacteristically high spending on litigation, is still spending outrageous and wholly unjustifiable amounts of money in litigation.

The process by which the school board, et al, decides to spend a million dollars of operational funds is supposed to protect taxpayers; the board is supposed to provide stewardship over the spending of millions of dollars on legal defenses for school board members and senior administrators.

In fact, the process of spending millions of operational dollars on litigation legal weaselry, takes place in meetings in secret, of which no record is made. There is no oversight. "Subordinate oversight" is not oversight; it is oxymoronic.

The result being; school board members and senior administrators are afforded cost-is-no-object legal defenses without regard to their often manifestly obvious guilt.

Again, despite having too few resources to fund middle school athletics, the leadership of the APS has found money to squander on litigation and legal weaselry ("Ferlic said APS has buried her in nearly 100,000 pages of “meaningless documents ...").

If Ferlic's allegation is true, it is newsworthy. Politicians and public servants should not be using tax dollars to impede justice. Ferlic's allegation is also easily proved or disproved; all the Journal has to do is look at the public record.

The Journal steadfastly refuses to investigate and report upon the squandering of millions of dollars that should, could, and would be spent in classrooms were they not being spent unjustifiably, in court rooms.

As evidence of the Journal's complicity in the cover up of the ethics, standards and accountability crisis in the leadership of the APS, consider that this report comes on a weekend; knowing full well that anyone who gets worked up over this outrage today, will have gotten over it by Monday