Journal endorses Paula Maes

The Journal has endorsed Paula Maes for APS School
Board District 5.

I will begin by pointing out that the Journal has endorsed
school board candidates without discussing student discipline,
administrative role modeling, or the need for an
immediate independent audit.

Worse still, is their endorsement of Paula Maes.

Paula Maes service on the board is already under a cloud;
her husband's law firm is making so much money off of
taxpayers and the APS, that they won't even respond to
requests for the public records of how much they have been paid, and for doing what, exactly.

The Journal editors have no problem apparently,
with the fact that when there was a discussion of a full scale
standards and accountability audit of the leadership of the APS,
at a Policy Committee Meeting on August 16, 2007,

Paula Maes said that she would never allow any audit
that would individually identify incompetent and/or corrupt
APS administrators and board members.*

And so far, she has kept her word.

There have been two audits of the APS Finance Division
since she declared protection for individual incompetence and
corruption. Neither, although reporting significant problems,
has mentioned the name of a single senior administrator who
was responsible for the problems.

We do not know for example, who should be held accountable
for the fact that the APS Finance Division was spending a
billion tax dollars a year;

• without adequate financially sound policies, and
• without adequate accountability, and
• without adequate record keeping.

And since we don't know who that good ol' boy was,
we don't know whether the good ol' boy that supervised him
was held accountable for their failure, or the person above
them for theirs.

And so on, right up to the highest levels of the administration
of the APS, and finally to the school board.

The Albuquerque Journal editors have really fumbled the
ball on this one.


*I have this on videotape and I am struggling trying to find
a way to put it online. When I figure it out, you will be able
to watch and hear her say exactly what I have been alleging
all along, that she said. The video I have, is of relatively poor
quality, because that is the kind of records that APS makes
and then surrenders under NMIPRA requests.

But it is legible and you will see the truth.

You just will never hear it from the Journal editors.


I have sent a letter to the Journal editors offering them an
opportunity to view the recording and then modify their
endorsement. I expect the letter to be ignored.




photo Mark Bralley

Command decision making and webcasting

The compromise on the table in Santa Fe, is that legislating
will be subject to webcasting except according to the wishes
of the committee chair.

I am told that it represents a reasonable compromise because
there are times when committees might nee to meet in secret
legitimately.

The problem with giving the committee chair the right to close
meetings unilaterally, is that is allows abuse of the privilege.

The answer lies in allowing command decision making,
but making it subject to review.

Allow command decision making, but provide a complaint
process that offers a principled resolution of complaints
of the abuse of that power.

Provide consequences for those who abuse the power.

Moss Adams; resetting the piece.

I attended an Audit Committee meeting, during which
APS Chief Financial Officer, Gina Hickman answered
board member questions about the Moss Adams audit
of the APS Finance Division.

During her testimony, she indicated that APS had met some
federal requirement for whistle blower protection,
because of the APS SilentWhistle program.

I have proved that APS' SilentWhistle is no more than
a forwarding mail box. link

Complaints are not guaranteed a principled resolution.

Complaints are forwarded to the very people against whom
they are made.

If the Moss Adams audit indicates that the leadership of
the APS has represented that they have an honest whistle
blower protection program, the audit contains a fraud.

I have contacted Moss Adams to allege that the leadership
of the APS, if they have deliberately misrepresented
SilentWhistle, have materially misled Moss Adams auditors.

Moss Adams apparently, does not want to respond to my
allegation on the record. They are yet to acknowledge
in writing, that they have even received it.

The Audit Committee, according to School Board Policy
has some responsibility with respect to oversight over the audit
and over APS' whistle blower protection program.

APS school board policy, here quoted in significant part;

"An Audit Committee to review and recommend
approval or action(s) ... any employee whistleblower
complaints ..."

It seems to me that the Audit Committee has to sign off on
the handling of my complaints.

If the Audit Committee signs off on a fraud, do they not
become complicit in an effort to materially mislead the
Moss Adams auditors?

The Audit Committee has every obligation to insist that
APS' Chief Financial Officer defend her representation
of the truth about SilentWhistle to Moss Adams auditors.

In an open meeting.

And why in the world, would I not be given the opportunity
during that meeting, to defend my complaints?


It is a simple enough question,

Does the audit represent that,
APS protects whistle blowers and offers principled
resolution of complaints by means of SilentWhistle?

If it does, it contains a fraud.

It seems fitting

A number of New Mexico bloggers have picked a side
on the issue of legislative webcasting.

They may not own it, but it is in the way they write.

The work of public servants is going to be public knowledge.

It will be on the internet, and it will because of the internet.

Heath Haussamen's; "Webcasting would change Santa Fe's culture"

Is a really good essay on legislative webcasting.
link

self discovery of a gadfly

www.carolmoore.net
(who wrote me that she came upon it twenty years ago; signed "Park" and was not able to contact him or her)

This is a re-posting of a piece I did in August 2007.

How can the Albuquerque Journal possibly justify its coverage?

In their entire coverage of the school board elections,
the Albuquerque Journal deliberately refuses to

ask the senior most role models of the student standard of conduct


how seriously they take that obligation.

S'up with Moss Adams?

I have been trying for a couple of days to engage either Moss
or Adams on the record, with respect to my allegation
that a fraud is attached to their recent audit of the APS.

So far, no one at Moss Adams has responded except
to offer to engage in a phone conversation.

I have made it clear that
I would rather that our communication not be verbal.

My experience with verbal communication with good ol' boys
is that we remember the conversation differently in court.

In fairness, Diogenes was, a cynic.

Why would Moss Adams not want to communicate on the record
except that they want to protect the possibility that
it might be remembered differently in court?



If there were another reason
that we are not now exchanging emails, and scheduling
a public discussion,

what is it?

The Journal covers the School Board Election, finally.

It is unfortunate that the Journal waited until after all of the
candidate forums before covering the election. There is now
no opportunity for voters to question candidates on their
stances on various issues.

I object to the limited scope of the questions that
the Journal put to candidates. link

And further, to the characterize of the "biggest" issues.

For example;
Journal education reporter, Andrea Schoellkopf
writes at one point;

Declining revenues, budget cuts and threats of a district
breakup are among the biggest issues facing a new
Albuquerque board of education. link

Which on its face is true; these are "among" the biggest issues;
they are not the biggest.

I would suggest that if you asked teachers and the others
who work face to face with students, to name their three
biggest issues, these three would not be among them.

I would suggest that teachers are far more concerned about
APS' third rail; student discipline and chronically disruptive students.

Further, I would suggest that teachers are far more concerned
about the negative effects of the exclusive focus on NCLB testing.

Taxpayers, I think, are far more concerned about tax dollars
being wasted by a system that enables administrative
corruption and incompetence. And they are, or would be,
if they knew about it, far more concerned that the leadership
of the APS is refusing to conduct an impartial standards and
accountability audit of the leadership of the APS.

Stakeholders would be very upset to learn that the leadership of
the APS steadfastly refuses to be held accountable as role
models of the student standard of conduct, and cannot even
summon the character and the courage to talk about the issue
in public and on the record.

Stakeholders would be more upset to learn that the leadership
of the APS will not tell the truth; they will not name a time,
a day, and a place where they will respond to legitimate
questions about the public interests, candidly, forthrightly and
honestly.


I am still not satisfied that the Journal has lived up to
its obligations to fully inform stakeholders about pertinent issues
in the APS school board elections.

In the brouhaha over the webcasting of the NM State Legislature

Too much credit cannot be given to Republican legislator
Representative Janice Arnold-Jones.

This is a lady of tremendous personal courage and dedication
to her service in the NM State Legislature.

Webcasting is only the first step in her plan to shine light
on some huge problems in state government.

There is going to be abundant change; change that would
not be happening were it not for Rep. Arnold-Jones.

I, for one, would have the whole webcasting system named
after NM State Representative Janice Arnold-Jones.

Truth and power.

It is hard to sum up the issue in fewer words than were used
by House Minority Leader Tom Taylor, R-Farmington,
who according to Trip Jennings at the New Mexico Independent said;

"The fact of the matter is any transparency that you do in a process like this dilutes the power of leadership to some degree.”

Secrecy is essential to escaping accountability for the
abuse of power.

There is no stopping an idea whose time has come.

And, transparency in government is an idea
whose time has come.

The other truth is that the NM Legislature has plenty to hide.

Were I them, I would want to hide the fact that,
with all of the problems that the legislature has to deal with,

the House Rules Committee spent 45 minutes debating
whether or not Bolo ties were acceptable attire on the
House floor.

Worth noting; I would suppose that many of these same
legislators previously voted in favor of
adopting the Bolo as the State Necktie.

Give me a break.

KRQE is doing an outstanding job covering the issue; link

Smells fishy to me.

The APS Audit Committee has an external component.
The external component exists
to mitigate the appearance of a conflict of interest;

good ol' boys evaluating the good ol' boys , while
simultaneously evaluating their own performance.


Half of the external component of the APS Audit Committee is vacant, and the good ol' boys are getting ready to accept an audit whose findings are in dispute.


Smells fishy to me.

APS Director of Internal Audit refuses to tell the truth

I am trying to find out the identity of the external member
of the APS Audit Committee.

I asked at the board office and was told that I could get that
information from the Director of Internal Audit.

I emailed Margret Koshmider and asked her for the identity
of, and contact information for, that member.

In response she "did not lie".

Mr. MacQuigg -

The structure of the audit committee is in the policies that were
approved on 9-3-08. Any release of information must go through
Rigo Chavez, and I believe you are aware of that.
I chose to release information on my e-mail and contact information to you, but cannot do that for others.
Also, one of the public positions is currently vacant and the committee
will discuss possible candidates at their next meeting.

I am sorry I cannot be of more help.

Peg Koshmider

Nor,

did she "tell the truth".



I refuse to go to Rigo, I mean puhleeeeease;
been there, done that.

The external member's name and email address will come out at some point.


It would be a shame if it were after the school board elections.

APS' SilentWhistle is a fraud.

Apparently, as part of the Moss Adams audit of the APS,
they have agreed that APS has met federal guidelines
for whistleblower protection.

When the school board approved APS' Whistleblower Policy
they specifically and deliberately denied protection to anyone
who blew a whistle on ethical misconduct by administrators or
board members.

I have published proof that complaints of ethical misconduct
do not receive a principled resolution through SilentWhistle.

The public record of the school board is of;

• tabling a motion that would have created a policy requiring candid, forthright and honest responses to legitimate questions, and
• tabling a motion that would have created honest accountability to meaningful standards of conduct and competence for administrators and board members, and
• ongoing refusal to set a time, a day, and a place where they will promise to tell the truth about the public interests and about their public service.

Yet APS claims its SilentWhistle, not only meets
the requirements of the federal government,
but it also provides a principled response
to claims of ethical misconduct.



Moss Adams auditors apparently agree.



I have emailed Moss Adams, and await their response.

How can they get away with this in plain site?

The leadership of the APS used the phrase "for a few years"
when they were supposedly telling stakeholders the truth
about the lack of standards and accountability
in the APS Finance Division, and of course,
in the entire leadership of the APS.

Technically, in a loop holey, legal weaselry kind of a way,
they have not "told a lie."

In a role model of the student standard of conduct kind of a way;

they did not tell the truth.

They did not role model for students and staff,
what it looks like to tell the truth, the whole truth,
and nothing but the truth, even against personal interests.

They did not walk the talk.

They did not show students what character and courage and
honor look like.

They did not prove to students that, character counts!



Why am I the only one who finds this outrageous?

Why am I the only one who wants to stand up and
scream wtf? ??



The hardest part of standing up alone has got to be
the wondering why.

I hold in my hands, two documents

There is no convenient way to post them. If you want to see
them, you will have to ask APS Custodian of Public Records,
Rigo Chavez to send them to you. It could take months.
Even after months, Chavez still has not surrendered an
original, clean copy, of one of the two surveys.

We are playing the, "here is a xerox copy, of a copy, of a copy", game.

One is called the APS/UNM Teacher Survey. It has only been
administered twice, the last time in 2002.

The other is called, the Evaluation of Supervisor by Staff,
a survey that is taken yearly. Teachers and others on school
staffs are supposedly enabled to evaluate their principals.

"Enabled to evaluate" needs to be taken with a grain of salt.

For example; one of the biggest problems in schools, is the
student discipline out of control.

The biggest gripe among teachers and among those who work
face to face with students, is that
they are not being "backed up" by administrators
when they are dealing with chronically disruptive, and even
dangerous students.

Yet neither survey instrument gathers any data on these issues.

The closest either survey comes is, in the APS/UNM survey,
respondents are allowed varying levels of agreement with three
statements;

• Most students are well mannered or respectful to the school staff,
• Most students are helpful and cooperative with teachers, and
• Students in this school are well behaved.

The Evaluation of Supervisor by Staff,
does not ask a single question that allows input on student
behavior issues, or upon a principals efforts to support teachers
who are dealing with those problems on a daily basis.

When I asked Thomas Genne, APS' Director of
Research, Development and Accountability,

if his department had ever asked teachers
for input on the problems that they confront
on a daily basis;

he admitted that for as long as he had been there,
the RDA had never surveyed teachers for their opinions
about what they need to succeed.

More than 70,000 years of teaching experience in the APS,
and the leadership of the APS has never asked them for their
opinions about what is wrong, or about how to fix it.

They have not been asked, as part of a deliberate effort
to cover up problems instead of laying them on the table
for people to see,

even as the first step in actually fixing them.

One week until election day, still nothing from the Journal

Early voting in the school board elections has been going on
for three weeks. Election day is next Tuesday.

And unless they went to a candidate forum,
voters have no idea what the issues are,
or what the candidates positions are, on those issues.

This represents a major failure on the part of the Journal
to meet their obligation to fully inform voters in anticipation
of an election.

It is Journalistic malpractice.

Shame on the Journal.

Journal reports on audit

Well, actually, the leadership of the APS reported on the audit,
the Journal printed a cut and paste, from APS' report. link

The Journal did pass along an excuse for the tardiness of the audit report;"

— filed nearly a year late due to personnel issues and
an upheaval in leadership —"

The upheaval in leadership included

• putting their only CPA on administrative leave for blowing the whistle on irregularities in the division,
• "firing" a senior administrator who was the subject of sexual harassment complaints, and
• the firing of the Director of Internal Audit, for spending half days at a casino and a porn shop.

I think it would be fairer to say that the report was filed a year
late because of a lack of standards and accountability
which has existed for as long as there has been an
APS Finance Division.

The Journal did not report on the fact that the leadership of the
APS made a deliberate effort to mislead stakeholders about
the problem. The leadership of the APS wrote;

“The APS Finance Department, under the leadership of
Chief Financial Officer Gina Hickman,
recognizes that for a few years the district wasn’t always
following acceptable accounting practices."

when the truth is, and they know that the truth is; to say
"for a few years" is a deliberate misleading.

The district has never had, and therefore has never followed
acceptable accounting practices.

If they did, they could point to them.
And they could point to, and justify or defend,
the removal of those acceptable accounting practices from
APS policy handbooks.

They can't.

Adequate, written, "acceptable accounting practices"
have never existed in the APS.

They are not telling the truth;

neither the Journal, nor the leadership of the APS.

APS Policy Committee will meet this morning.

Policy and Instruction Committee Meeting
Tuesday, January 27, 2009
7:30 AM
DeLayo-Martin Community Room

On the agenda, link,

Clarification of Board Committee Policy (B.07)

Specifically,

D. The Audit Committee reviews and recommends approval of action(s) associated with the District’s Annual Audit, any internal audit(s), audits associated with the Capital Outlay and Technology Committee and any whistleblower complaints. The Audit Committee will also include two non-Board/non-APS employees. The Finance Committee Chair will chair the committee. The non-Board/non-APS members, one of whom shall be a CPA, will be selected by the Audit Committee and approved by the Board. The non¬Board/non-APS Committee members shall serve two-year terms.

It would appear that I have an opportunity to appeal the abuses of APS' SilentWhistle by APS Director of Internal Audit, who mishandled two complaints; one made against Winston Brooks, and the other made against her. link

I have been waiting for, and fighting for, this hearing
for about fifteen years.

The thick, plottens.

Albuquerque Public Schools; Student Discipline

Where to begin?

Are there problems?
If so, what are they? and says who?

How bad are the problems?

What is being done about them?

Who is responsible for getting it done?

Who will answer these questions?

candidly, forthrightly, and honestly.





I can tell you who won't;

... anybody at all, in the leadership of the APS.

A time, a day, a place

where the leadership of the APS will sit still and
answer legitimate questions about
student discipline in the Albuquerque Public Schools.

A time, a day, a place

where the leadership of the APS will tell the truth,
the whole truth and nothing but the truth


so help me God.