NEW BISD CFO GETS A YEAR EXTENSION AFTER 6 MONTHS

By Juan Montoya
Some people lead a charmed existence.
Take for example, new Brownsville Independent School District Chief Financial Office Lucio Mendoza.
Just this Tuesday, the majority on the board Cesar Lopez, Minerva Peña, Hector Chirinos and Otis Powers decided to extend his contract for another year after only six months on board.
If you remember, Mendoza was hired in August 2013 by a 5-2 vote of the board that included newly-sworn in board member Lopez, the late board President Enrique Escobedo, and trustees Peña, Chirinos and Powers.
Trustees Catalina Presas-Garcia and Luci Longoria voted against.
Lopez, the purchasing agent for the Mercedes ISD, had been sworn in prior to the vote on Mendoza.
Now, we know that the district is going through some difficult financial times and that it's finding hard to make ends meet. But awarding an extension to s new hire who left behind a trail of deficits at Mission ISD six months into his tenure is a bit difficult to swallow.
If you remember, at Mission ISD, Mendoza was assistant superintendent for finance and operations and oversaw everything from keeping a balanced budget, maintaining the school's infrastructure and other sundry duties. He also personally oversaw the purchase and installation of security cameras and surveillance equipment.
A review of the Mission ISD budgets over the last three years indicates that the district has run on deficit since 2011.
Records indicate that although local and immediate sources of revenue, state program revenues, and federal program revenues increased every single year over that time span, and the total budgets for the three years were $140,755 (2011), $146,204,309 (2012), and $152,201,509, Mendoza managed to run a deficit each one of those years.
In 2011, the deficit was $416,747. In 2012, the deficit grew to $5,391,160. In 2013, his last year at the helm as CFO there, the district will have a $16,565,429 deficit.
Nonetheless, the former majority decided to overlook that less-than-stellar performance and hire Mendoza.
The hiring raised eyebrows from here to San Antonio.
To some, it smelled of one hand washing the other, a sort of contracts-for-jobs, as the San Antonio Express-News put it.
In the article, reporter Aaron Nelsen wrote on Feb. 22 that:

"Brownsville ISD school board members (Longoria and Presas Garcia) filed a federal lawsuit Jan. 14, accusing district Superintendent Carl Montoya and fellow board members Herman Otis Powers Jr., Minerva Peña, Hector Chirinos and Cesar Lopez, and school district counsel Baltazar Salazar of retaliation, libel, slander and favoritism in awarding contracts to American Surveillance, a company the lawsuit says is owned by Escobedo's brother and that Escobedo was the vice president of. 

When Longoria and Presas asked questions or raised objections, Escobedo had them censured, according to the suit, which seeks $2 million in damages for violating their constitutional rights.
The lawsuit alleges Salazar and Escobedo chose Lopez, a purchasing administrator at Mercedes ISD, to fill a vacant seat on the Brownsville school board soon after the Mercedes board awarded a contract to American Surveillance.
The former assistant superintendent for finance and operations for Mission Consolidated Independent School District, Lucio Mendoza, was hired as Brownsville ISD's chief financial officer after the Mission school board awarded American Surveillance a contract for $865,000, the lawsuit alleges.
Mission CISD records show the board approved contracts with American Surveillance on three occasions between January 2013 and June 2013 worth $1.3 million. Mendoza left Mission CISD on Sept. 5...
Cameron County District Attorney Luis V. Saenz, who was elected to an office still reeling from the conviction last year of his predecessor, made prosecuting corruption his first priority.
About the Brownsville ISD lawsuit, Saenz said, “It's something we have been looking into and investigating for months and months.”

And even in the face of an ongoing investigation into the role that Mendoza may have played the current board majority still feels it can award a one-year extension on the unexpired contract to one of the principals in the affair?