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| Fager's Island Restaurant Receipt |
They like it so much that they paid $128,125 to have the Venable law firm and partner Karl Racine defend their use of MCPS credit cards.
Yes, that was $128,125 the BOE spent just to defend their use of credit cards.
Absolutely no students benefited from this "education funding." No teachers were hired and no classrooms were stocked with school supplies. How many Montgomery County homes paid property taxes to supply those "education" dollars to the BOE for this use?
$128,125 spent just on 8 BOE members demanding the right to spend "education" dollars on their own meals and entertainment. $112,569 of those dollars were spent in ONE MONTH.
The Venable bill for May 2014 totaled $28,888. The largest amount was for financial matters ($15,556), all of which was related to the review of expense reimbursements.
The Venable bill for June 2014 totaled $112,569, all of which was related to the review of expense
reimbursements
Next month: the July 2014 Venable bill will be revealed.
This is a horrific reality… The School Board goes hog wild with extravagant and personal spending of TAXPAYER MONEY to the tune of six figures plus, THEN, when caught, spends another six figures plus DEFENDING their ill-gotten “privilege.” This must stop NOW. Vote for anyone but the incumbent members of the BOE in November. Send a message.
ReplyDelete$128,000 to say "Cut Up the Credit Cards". Didn't the Parents Coalition already tell them that for free?
ReplyDeleteMaybe next they should cut up the contract with Venable, as they really can't afford to be spending that kind of money for common sense advice they should have already known themselves.
This board is in a world of their own. At the last meeting they suggested hiring more black teachers so we can be like PG county to make the students feel good about themselves. That's right qualified experienced white teachers get lost. This board only cares about optics. Who cares about hiring the best and the brightest teachers for the kids? And they wonder why there's white flight.
ReplyDeleteThat's also basing hiring practices on racial grounds. We high is in itsekf, racist. Just because they would feel good about themselves (the people doing the hiring) doesn't make it any kind of ad l trust action. Their ulterior motives are even more offensive because they try to d I s guise their behavior.
DeleteI don't care if a teacher is green with orange stripes. Hire them on merit and ability ONLY.
a.k.a. Milieu therapy
DeleteI'd like to know why they think it's better to hire more blacks. Every school system that has majority black teachers is a failure. MCPS has more Asian and Hispanic kids combined than black kids. Are they hiring Asian and Hispanic teachers so the kids can feel good about themselves?
DeletePlease don't spew out your racism, Anonymous at 9:01 AM; we have enough problems without your contribution.
DeleteThe BOE brings in quality
ReplyDeleteWith its spend mentality
That is boosted by legality
To achieve a horrific reality.
Do we know how much MCPS and/ or the BOE have spent to date on lawyers in connection with the Joynes 'situation'?
ReplyDeleteHere is the long-term critical problem with this gratuitous spending: MCPS needs hundreds of millions of dollars to rebuild old schools and construct new ones. To do this, we must form relationships with communities and state legislators statewide. How can we tell state legislators that we need money, when we spend gratuitously on BOE expenses? I am talking about the ~$100,000 annual budget that the BOE continues to have for expenses and travel and now the legal bills we are forced to pay because BOE members, particularly Chris Barclay, and some members of MCPS senior staff misused their credit cards.
ReplyDeleteI believe that most school boards in the state have an annual travel and expense budget under $10,000. Why would their state legislators ever vote to give us funding for our capital budget when, from their point of view, they see frivolous spending by MCPS?
I distinctly recall Chris Barclay piously informing us at the CIP budget hearings last year that it rested on the shoulders of parents to go to Annapolis and plead our case for more money; all the while, he was undercutting any such effort by illegal personal spending on his MCPS credit card.
This school district has got to get its spending act together - no more crying poor, when we end the year with ~$40 million surplus funds in the central office's operating budget. Schools are chronically under-resourced, so we need to transfer the funds that over-fatten the central office's budget to schools, where the money is desperately needed.
The central office should take a vow of poverty in order to prove to the rest of the state that yes, we actually need capital funds for our school district. Unless we change our culture of spending, we will fail continually to obtain the school funding that we need from the state.
At least special education outside counsel costs are way down.
ReplyDeleteDon't worry, Jeff Krew already built his mansion get-away on his private island with his 7 figure MCPS windfall.
DeleteThe typical entitlement of the MCPS BOE based on the entitlement of the upper echelon of MCPS continues.
ReplyDelete