AFTER RUNNING IT TO THE GROUND CHIRINIOS STILL WANTS TO RUN BISD TRANSPORTATION DEPARTMENT

By Juan Montoya
So this is why Jose Hector Chirinos wanted to be a Brownsville Independent School District trustee.
Months after a forensic audit found he had left the Transportation Department in a shambles as its former director, he managed to get himself elected to the school board running in a ticket with Minerva Peña, Butch Barbosa and Otis Powers.
Before then, former Special Needs Director Art Rendon had settled a lawsuit with the BISD and as part of
the settlement had been made director of the department after Chirinos was shunted off in mid-2011 to become interim principal of Veterans High School and later hidden away in an obscure position in the main office.
As part of the BISD's succession process, the district performed a "Change in Administration Audit" and in a letter dated August 2012, three months before Chirinos was elected, Lead Internal Auditor Margarita Pizano-Flores relayed the findings to the board.
They were never made public before the November elections.
But now, as the district tries to clean up the mess Chirinos made and implement the changes recommended by the BISD audit team, he is proving to be the main obstacle to the reforms that have already saved the district millions in overtime and could potentially save it even more. In his corner is trustee Minerva Peña whose ally in the bus driver's union Petra Ramirez is helping Chirinos micromanage the department he left in a shambles.
How bad was it?
Let's start with the little things. Chirinos kept something called an "Activity/Motivational Fund Account" in his budget which came from the profits of the vending machines at Transportation against BISD policy. That was put to an end with no accounting of the proceeds and the money now goes to the district's miscellaneous revenue fund like all other departments. It was, in other words, a slush fund.
The auditors found an inventory that kept steadily growing from 2007-2008 to 2010-2011, finally decreasing in 2011-2012, when Chirinos was gone.
* During those four years, the accumulated inventory increased by $325,868. It wasn't until Rendon took over in the 2011-2012 budget that it decreased by $277,749.
* Of the 3,841 parts with a value of $792,535 in inventory, approximately 698 items with a value of $89,144 had become obsolete. They no longer fit any of the buses on the district's fleet. The district had to eat the loss.
* The useful life of 46 tires worth $5,020 had expired. These tires could no longer be used or sold.
* Variances in the inventory due to "miscounts, theft, disposal or removal from inventory without corresponding record" totaled $16,092.
The auditors recommended that the department implement a "just in time" outsource method with vendors that would reduce inventory, and save warehouse space and costs. That "JIT" system is now in place.
When the auditors visited the Transportation warehouse in 2012 they found it stacked to the roof with and "excess amount" of miscellaneous office supplies that included three LaserJet printers still in the box that had been purchased in 2009 and 2010. Cases of paper clips, file folders, computer paper and other office supplies filled the sides of entire walls.
* Curious to see whether a sample audit of 200 fixed-assets would turn up any discrepancies, the auditors found that a camera worth $589, a battery backup worth $477, at least four radios worth over $300 and an external hard drive worth $263 were missing.
* During a 100 percent fixed-assets inventory, auditors discovered that 11 items totaling $100,377 could not be located in the department.
But it was the overtime budget under Chirinos that caused the most concern for the auditors. Until he left, the  overtime charges ballooned unchecked. When asked about it, Chirinos said that the unions (Ms. Ramirez's outfit) and the past administration prevented him from acting. Here's a breakdown by year:
                          Overtime Pd.                                 Increase                           Decrease
2008-2009        $2,142,468
2009-2010        $2,976,557                                  $834,089
2010-2011        $2,407,735                                                                           $568,822
2011-2012        $1,455,725                                                                           $952,009
"It is evident that overtime costs were excessive for fiscal years 2009-2010 (Chirinos' reign)," the audit found. "(They) show a decrease of $952,009 for (2011-2012)..." under Rendon.
The BISD audit recommendation for the department? "Continue to strengthen the internal controls to endure that district resources are safeguarded against fraud, waste and abuse."
Now Mr. Chirinos is the BISD's budget committee chairman and is pushing to prevent changes in that department such as reorganizing the dispatching of drivers to clusters to reflect the needs of the district. Can the district taxpayers afford his micromanaging given his sorry record at Transportation?