DORA DID DALLAS, PASO POR LA FERIA, BACK IN B-TOWN

By Juan Montoya

A former Brownsville Independent School District principal who resigned from the Dallas Independent School District after an audit discovered she had submitted a fabricated  $4,083 invoice for moving expenses is back home again.
She is being recommended to be hired in the grants adminisitrator's office at tonight's meeting at the BISD main office.

Dora Sauceda began working in Dallas in July 2012. She was hired after she left the BISD and was assigned to the position of executive director over 12 schools in the Pinkston High School feeder pattern.

A DISD preliminary internal audit, obtained by The Dallas Morning News  that December, noted that “an invoice from C and W Moving Company, dated July 21, 2012 raised multiple questions in regards to its authenticity.”

Documents obtained by The News in an open-records request show that Sauceda, 48, submitted the  invoice on July 21. 

The newspaper posted documents that show Sauceda hired C and W Moving to move her and her husband, Frank, to Dallas in July. The newspaper noted that the company didn't appear to be registered with the Texas Secretary of State, nor was it registered with the Texas Department of Motor Vehicles, as state law required. 

The address for the moving company in Brownsville is to a home registered to Frank and Noe Sauceda, Frank’s brother. Noe is the former BISD superintendent and an assistant professor at the University of Texas-Pan American. Frank is Noe's brother and Dora Sauceda is his sister-in-law. She will now be assigned as an administrator  in the grants department – the second one after Jay W. Harris, who commands a $136,167 salary.

Sauceda, in her resignation, defended her actions in a prepared statement and said no guidelines exist in DISD with respect to moving companies and them being bonded or certified.

The newspaper noted her response:
“I did not submit reimbursement expenses for more than I spent to move to Dallas,” Sauceda stated. “I did not pay any family member to move me. I have reimbursed the district $4,083. Had I known for certain that I could be reimbursed for moving expenses prior to my move, I would have handled this differently."
The preliminary Dallas ISD audit noted that one invoice for moving expenses appeared to be fabricated.

Several BISD administrators expressed disbelief that Sauceda, the sister-in-law of a former BISD superintendent who left under a dark cloud from the DISD could be hired without qualms in Brownsville.

The BISD agenda indicates that she will now be assigned as an administrator  in the grants department – the second one after Jay W. Harris, who commands a $136,167 salary.
The item on the agenda is termed: 70. Recommend approval of non-chapter 21 contractual personnel for the 2012-2013 and the 2013-2014 school years – Administrator for Grants. Subject to receipt of all
outstanding documentation.

"What could she possibly be doing in that department with Harris already there at a $130,000 salary?" asked one. "Obviously, she has the four votes she needs to get the position."
Matthew Hagg, who wrote the original story for the News, said that the Sauceda episode moved the DISD administration and board to fomulate new polices to prevent future occurrances.
"Dallas ISD implemented new moving expense reimbursement policies. You could call one of them the "Dora Sauceda Rule.
"It reads: 'Moving of Household and Personal Effects - Includes actual costs of packing,transporting, unpacking household effects; in-transit storage costs; and insurance from a verifiable moving company. The Dallas ISD will require substantial documentation to ascertain the validity of the moving company used. Any uncertainty surrounding the moving company’s validity will delay or prevent the reimbursement to the employee.'" 

Those four votes that could get Dora back in the BISD? Perhaps Hector Chirinos, Minerva Peña, Enrique Escobedo and Otis Powers? And will they ask to see her moving invoice?

We'll wait and see.