WHEN WILL THE TSC $180,000 DE LA GARZA SHOE DROP?

By Juan Montoya

When Lily Tercero was hired as president of Texas Southmost College back in October 2011, her application carried a glowing recommendation from a Dr. Leonardo de la Garza, her former mentor and boss at the Tarrant County College District.

De la Garza said Tercero "is one of the best," noting she was actively involved in board decisions as well as her church and community.

"She worked with me at Sante (sic) Fe Community College and at Tarrant County (College District)," the recommendation read. "Lily is one of the brightest and most hard working individuals I know. She is a star, she just shines, and she will be an outstanding president at Texas Southmost College."

In what would amount to a quid pro quo, a month later, in November 17, 2011, Tercero asked the board chaired by Kiko Rendon that de la Garza be brought on board as a consultant and part of her "transition team."

The board agreed and fixed a generous $180,00 price tag for his assistance in "consulting" for Tercero as she sought to gain independent accreditation for the now-independent community college. Now, nearly five years later, this "temporary consultant" still continues to rake in the TSC dough.

At the time of his hiring on as a consultant to TSC de la Garza was chancellor emeritus of the Tarrant County College District. He had left in 2009 with two years left on his contract – but managed to work out a  deal where he would still receive $700,000 two years later, the Fort Worth Star-Telegram reported.

But de La Garza was also – and still was when he came on board with TSC – a vendor and associate of Dynamic Campus, an IT firm which specializes in selling Ebooks (Pearson) and Information Technology (IT) to school districts and entities of higher education like community colleges and universities.
By all measures, De la Garza moved fast.
By May 2012 – some six months later – De la Garza had steered a $1 million IT contract to his "Dynamic Campus," the computer firm for whom he had worked for more than three years before.
Then, on September 2012, four months after the $1 million pact, the company locked three segments of IT services to Dynamic Campus with TSC for an additional $10 million extending into 2015 with an option for another three years.
Who would have thought that from November 2011 to September 2012, De la Garza would have landed more than $10 million in contracts to his former employer?
Among the "consultant" fees included in the total was a $2,000 monthly retainer and a $1,500 fee for expenses every time he visits Brownsville and the TSC campus.
And to think that just a year before Tercero brought him to TSC – on October 2010 – de la Garza was part of the "Dynamic Campus" team hawking computer and Internet solutions at the Texas Association of Community Colleges' annual board of directors meeting held in Austin, Texas.
At the time he was listed as an employee with Dynamic Campus Solutions Inc., in effect an employee and salesman of the company.
As part of his duties at TSC, he was one of the consultants to the TSC board when the members evaluated the TSC president (his former employee who brought him here).
Once on board, de la Garza took part in advising Tercero and the board on the necessary policy moves and expenditures to make TSC a free-standing institution once it gained operational independence in the fall of 2013. On of those was the colleges' information technology (IT) section. As a close personal adviser of the new president, he would have had a direct hand in advising the TSC administrative staff on formulating the Requests for Proposals (RFPs) for the new IT setup.

As the local daily reported in September 2011, IT services were some of the many assets that became intertwined as the "partnership" between TSC and UT-Brownsville developed.
On May 21, 2012, the TSC board of trustees engaged the services of de la Garza's Dynamic Campus Solutions Inc. to implement the college's information technology (IT) solutions.
Tercero said the college was aiming for state-of-the-art technology. At the time, the contract required a budget amendment, said Chet Lewis, TSC former vice president for finance and administration.
The board approved the contract with a cap at $800,000 not to exceed $1 million and Lewis told then the price was for phase one of creating a new TSC system.
The local daily reported that the price "includes the creation of a new TSC website, the provision of network services such as email and phone, a help desk and a cloud, or protected Internet connection, for the school’s data. The phase will take place May 30 to Dec. 30 (2012)."
What Dynamic Campus senior vice president Richard Middaugh didn't tell the TSC trustees during his presentation on May 21 was that his company was incorporated in California and could not legally do business in Texas until it had filed its application for registration of a foreign for-profits corporation here.
Records with the Texas Secretary of State indicate that Dynamic Campus filed its application on September 6, 2012 and listed the date "on which the foreign entity first transacted business in Texas" as June 6, 2012, more than a week after TSC had granted it the IT contract.
Right before the May 21, 2012 $1 million award to Dynamic Campus Solutions, de la Garza was the featured "special guest" of Dynamic Campus Solutions in Orlando, Fla., during the 2012 American Association of Community Colleges' 92nd Annual Convention April 21-24 where the company invited participants to "stop by and see us and our special guest, Dr. Leonardo de la Garza at booth 822..."
One of the Tercero-de la Garza's "innovations" was the implementation of Ebooks, that is, course text books that students pay for up front with their tuition and are accessible to them online. The service was part of a multimillion deal between TSC and Dynamic Solutions.
Under this "cutting-edge" scheme, students paid an average of $95 for access to each course Ebook per class. This seemed like a good idea until parents and students realized that there was no hard copy of the book available and that there were some severe restrictions.to add insult to injury, if you go to the Pearson website, the same tome in a hard copy is available for some $10 less.
Dynamic Solutions website wrote this about Tercero: "President Lily Tercero’s bold vision to open with full IT functionality was realized, thanks to the resourceful Dynamic Campus team. She was able to put her focus on building academic programs and recruiting faculty and students. “Outsourcing with Dynamic Campus made good business sense,” she concluded.
That assessment may have been premature, according to industry analysts. They say that Pearson has been severely impacted by a dwindling demand for its eBooks and that students now favor hard copies that they don;t have to access through the Internet accounts.
This hasn't hurt de la Garza's business.
He continued to be paid by TSC as a consultant to Tercero on a myriad of matters, but Dynamic Solutions was never been left out.

Just as Lewis warned that the initial $1 million outlay to the company for IT work was just the beginning, the TSC administration staff came back on September 20, 2012, telling the board that they "had worked with Dynamic Campus to develop an amendment to the contract to proceed with the remaining phase of the proposed services."
They recommended – and the board approved without the need for further RFPs:
1. $2,042,856 for FY 2013 (Jan. 1-Aug. 31, 2013)
2. $3,568,944 for FY 2014 and
3. $3,824,616 for FY 2015 with an option to extend the contract an additional three-year term (until 2018).
Did de la Garza, while working as a consultant to TSC president Tercero and still associated with Dynamic Campus Solutions, receive a commission for the $10 million sale without disclosing his personal interest in the sales?
The new board majority at TSC is now going through its budget workshops.
Sources tell us that among the items being reviewed is the de la Garza contract, the college and Dynamic Solutions' relationship, and even the annual $25,000 "membership" to Kiko Rendon-Ed Rivera United Brownsville cronies.