Monday, March 27, 2017

CHICKENS COME HOME TO ROOST OVER RINGS, ITABLETS



Special to El Rrun-Rrun

Was there hanky-panky going on when the Brownsville Independent School District moved to accept a $25,060 "donation" in the form of 28 rings valued at $895 each for the student/athletes who were part of the Porter Early College High School championship team in 2016-2017 season?

In the past two monthly meetings no one has admitted ordering the rings from the Herrf Jones company. And despite emails from BISD Superintendent Esperanza Zendejas to a competing vendor representing Josten's telling him that she and the principal and athletic coordinator at Porter had already chosen Herrf Jones to purchase $31,000 worth of rings, no one has claimed responsibility for their purchase.

According to an investigation by BISD co-lead auditor Arvin Tucker, Zendejas "negotiated" the donation of $25,060 worth of rings from Herrf Jones after the vendor sent Porter an invoice for the rings. But this was after the vendor learned that a tip from a citizen had triggered an investigation into how it was that the procurement process was bypassed in the acquisition of the rings.

Neither Zendejas nor trustee Joe Rodriguez – who is a registered vendor for BSN Sports which merged with Herrf Jones in 2013 – let on that each had received a free $995 ring as a "volume discount" from the ring company.

On Wednesday, the BISD board will again consider the items below in a specially called meeting at 3 p.m.:

5. Recommend approval to accept $25,060.00 from Herff Jones for the donation of 28 student rings given to the Porter Early College High School 5A State Championship team.

15. Presentation and discussion regarding the process by which the Athletics Department and/or the Athletic Director reviews and selects vendors for the campuses. (Board Member Request – SPA)

16. Presentation and discussion regarding the process by which the Technology Department and/or the Technology Administrator reviews and selects vendors for the campuses. (Board Member Request – SPA)

23. Discussion, consideration and possible action to authorize the Board Attorney to contract a school law attorney to investigate the procurement procedures in the district as they relate to pending issues; i.e. tablets and rings. (Board Member Request – SPA)

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

ok so make me understand the process because i am a SIMPLETAN. If BISD has a rule of BOARD approval on donations BEFORE they are donated and the Board attorney has deem it as a violation of board policy, why is the board bent on breaking their own policy, oh wait I know why, maybe because its not in Spanish/French or Italian. But wait it is still a UIL violation and making it an acceptable donation might make it OK, but guess what, its NOT. Joe Rodriguez is probably the one pushing this stupid agenda. Yes its a great win for the students/program and school but breaking rules is not ok, just like their are RULES in the games we play, their are rules in life, board policy and so forth and to excuse breaking the rules is NOT ACCEPTABLE by no means. But wait only SIMPLE people will understand this. Moral of the story, when you break a rule you break a rule, it is that SIMPLE.

Anonymous said...

Who cares?

Anonymous said...

The last item should read "Contact the Attorney General's Office over procurements"

Anonymous said...

Anonymous At 12:16....Please Stop Posting Gibberish . ..my head hurts trying to read your comments . Also, please have someone check your spelling ; it needs help.

Anonymous said...

Obviously you, you cared enough to read the article and comments and then made a comment.

Anonymous said...

We should get taken over by Idea or Harmony, srsly

Anonymous said...

Gibberish, again simple statement, for you to attack it and say your head hurts then I feel sorry for your thought process, let me say this, if you don't know that if you break the rules, then you break the rules, you can not make that any simpler, so if you can not grasp a simple statement then you really really have a problem.

Anonymous said...

The problem is that all of us are tired of reading the same thing over and over. Nothing is going to get done because it would hurt the Porter kids, but if a lady who hits and runs and kills a person is found not guilty, why do we worry about issues like this? It is the time we are living in where values have deteriorated faster than I can fart. Look at the shenenigans that our mayor has under his sleeve and he has gotten away with it. Let's all just scratch each other's back.

rita