BARBOSA'S SUNDAY AD "BUTCH"ERED THE FACTS

By Juan Montoya
The Butch Barbosa campaign has shown by the placing of their political advertisement Sunday that they are not going to let a few facts get in the way of a good story.
As if airing dirty laundry, the Barbosa camp pulled out a list of alleged wrongdoings by incumbent Caty Presas-Garcia that – if true – would guarantee her stoning in an Arab country. But of course, a fib is much juicier than the truth.
For example, the Barbosa ad claims that the BISD has a $504 million budget. That is incorrect sand out of date. This year, it reached $509 million. The ;last $504 million budget was passed two years ago.
Presas-Garcia is not in the process of declaring bankruptcy. That, in fact, happened years ago. But of course, by stating that she "has declared" leads the reader to believe that the bankruptcy ins ongoing .The proceedings are over
And no, $80 million is not required by BISD policy to be in the fund balance. Policy requires that there be enough there to operate for 75 days. Those who have actually followed BISD proceedings know that the figure used in discussing this $1 million a day to operate the district, and thus say the fund minimum should be at least $75 million.
Part of the reason the fund is below the minimum level is reduced funding from the sate of Texas. To work within the budget caused by those reductions, the district chose a middle path. that path included some drawing down from the fund balance savings and voluntary retirement/resignations from employees.
What was utilized from the fund balance prevented any layoffs of personnel. Yes the fund balance is lower, but no employee families have been thrown into crisis and the community has not been financially impacted by layoffs. If anything, Presas-Garcia and the board majority should be praised for a good use of savings.
When Barbosa also points out that two years ago the district was Recognized status, insinuating that academic performance has dropped. That, at the very minimum is misleading and at worst, dishonest. When presented out of context, it is also inflammatory.
Students take a different state test than they did two years ago. At that time the state was giving students credit for some incorrect answers on the tests (since discontinued) thus inflating scores. Test scores are always lower when a new test is first introduced. He could have pointed out that 56 percent of all districts in Texas did not meet AYP this year and 80 percent of the districts in the state, including BISD, have signed a petition asking the state for a more fair system.
 The explanation for the lower scores includes actions from both the state and federal governments in financial and academic areas and cannot be attributed entirely to local administration as is suggested in this ad.
But let's forgive that and ascribe it to ignorance of the facts. But the next part of the ad is plain inflammatory. The ad says 28 of 54 schools failed to meet minimum standards. There are many categories for each campus that must ALL be passed to meet standards. It is a disservice to these schools to call them failing when they have not met one of many bureaucratic categories. Is this how our students will be regarded if Barbosa gets to be a trustee?
And, then, of course, Barbosa could not pass the chance to bring up the Hector Gonzales-Antonio Juarez lawsuit settlement. Why did Caty vote for the Gonzales settlement? the ad asks. Would Barbosa have voted not to pout an end to the costly litigation brought on by the action of the previous bard majority after the insurers and the district had gone through $.2.3 million even before a single word of testimony had been heard in court.
With no end in sight, she opted to put an end to the excessive litigation costs and the district paid $700,000 when it could have paid three or four times as much had the district lost in court as its lawyers said it would. Are we to understand that Butch would have continued to throw good money after bad to defend the illegal  conduct of the defendant trustees (Rick Zayas, Ruben Cortez, Joe Colunga and Rolando Aguilar) even after two federal courts said enough evidence had been presented for a jury to deliberate whether they had conspired to violate the men's civil rights?
Oh, by the way, Danny's last name is Defenbaugh not "Defendbaugh."
"The public deserves truthful answers, " the ad says.
They might have added that the public also deserves more truthful questions than this advertisement asks. If anything, Barbosa's ad indicates that he doesn't know facts, had not been following BISD issues before deciding to run at the last minute, presents info out of context to mislead, and – perhaps this is most important – offers absolutely no solutions.