TSC INSURANCE BIDDING PROCESS RESCUED AT LAST MOMENT

"The people will live on.

The learning and blundering people will live on.

They will be tricked and sold and again sold.

And go back to the nourishing earth for rootholds....

This old anvil laughs at many broken hammers.

There are men who can't be bought..."

From: "The People, Yes," by Carl Sandburg

By Juan Montoya

Each time a new candidate or an elected official seeks reelection, they promise to represent the voters and to look out for their interests.

Catchwords like "accountability" and "transparency" bounce like ping pong balls against the candidate debate chambers, and the walls echo with the beating of palms against chests as gestures of truthfulness. and when someone gets appointed to a aboard they, too, promise to represent the interests of "the people."

But recent events and performances of some local boards has shown all too plainly that the promises were just for show. We'll take a look at but a few recent examples to illustrate this.

Brownsville Independent school District Trustee Prisci Roca-Tipton 

(also a Texas Southmost staffer), stays on TSC supplemental insurance committee despite receiving campaign funds from vendors

When BISD trustee Dr. Prisci Roca-Tipton, also a Texas Southmost College coordinator of sponsored programs, grants and contracts, was named as a member of the community college's employee bids evaluation committee for the lucrative supplemental insurance contract, red flags went up in certain quarters.

Roca-Tipton, a Ph.D. in Business Administration, had run for BISD trustee in 2018 with the support of fellow Dr. Sylvia Atkinson who openly campaigned for her and for former BISD PIO Drue Brown.

A recent amended federal indictment against Atkinson in her federal bribery trial included charges that she had solicited campaign contributions from vendors and that some of the money made its way to the two women's campaigns, some of the funds not reported through the required campaign contribution and expenditures reports.

Roca-Tipton, who was the recipient of some of these vendor funds, should have known better back in 2018. And she should have known better in 2020 that she should not sit on the TSC employee insurance contract bid evaluation committee for supplemental insurance because of the appearance of the potential conflict of interest. Nonetheless, after evaluating the vendors' responses to the Requests For Proposals, they came up with their recommendations and made them to the board's insurance committee.

That's when the red flags begin to look like hurricane warnings banners and none other than local gadfly - and former BISD trustee Erasmo  Castro - alerted board insurance committee members Dr. Tony Zavaleta and Ruben Herrera - to the gathering storm.

Disbelieving at first that someone with Roca-Tipton's academic ethical training could allow the situation to develop that would cast doubts on TSC's fiscal and purchasing process integrity, Zavaleta was presented with copies of her expense reports that showed Castro was correct. His response was unequivocal. Business at  TSC had to be honest and forthright. 

A major insurance player - Joe Salazar III, of Salazar and Associates - had contributed $500 in October 2018. And given the indictment against Atkinson in federal court, it is not difficult to imagine that the final amounts could have been much higher, and perhaps unreported. The other vendor listed under Salazar, Ron McVey, is also doing business with the BISD and had floated proposals from his E3 Integral solution. His (reported) contribution to Roca-Tipton in 2018 was $2,355.

Since the BISD election, McVey has also made his pitch to get TSC business for his E3 Integral Solutions where BISD trustees Atkinson and Roca-Tipton both worked.

On January 2019, the BISD - where Roca-Tipton and Atkinson as board members - approved these payments to McVey's company:

*  1. Recommend approval of Payment #5 for $111,948.26 as partial payment to E3 Entegral Solutions, Inc. for Construction Services work completed on the Design Build LED Lighting Replacement, Phase I, to be paid from Maintenance Tax Note Fund 189.

* 2. Recommend approval of Payment #6 for $19,624.82 as partial payment to E3 Entegral Solutions, Inc. for Construction Services work completed on the Design Build LED Lighting Replacement, Phase I to be paid from Maintenance Tax Note Fund 189. 

*3. Recommend approval of Payment #1 for $20,730.90 as partial payment to E3 Entegral Solutions, Inc. for Construction Services work completed on the Design Build HVAC DX Replacement, Phase II to be paid from Maintenance Tax Note Fund 189.

*4. Recommend approval of Payment #2 for $1,925,614.44 as partial payment to E3 Entegral Solutions, Inc. for Construction Services work completed on the Design Build HVAC DX Replacement, Phase II to be paid from Maintenance Tax Note Fund 189. "

Alarmed at the contributions to Roca-Tipton by the insurance vendor, the TSC board members - who were scheduled to vote this past May 21 on the TSC employee insurance evaluation committee - instead tabled the item and decided to start anew and begin the long, arduous process to remove any suspicion of collusion and allegations of conflict of interest in the process.

What happened to Roca-Tipton's campaign promises to promote fiscal responsibility, set up ad hoc oversight committees for academics, budget and facilities and other measures with the goal of protecting institutional integrity and transparency?

She is now one of four BISD trustees - Atkinson, Brown, Laura Perez-Reyes, and Minerva Pena - who are named in subpoenas issued in Atkinson's upcoming federal bribery trial. What more disclosures will emerge from the testimony there?

Will we find out that the whole system - beginning with the BISD and leeching out to the community college - is awash in self-dealing and "pay to play" schemes to do business with our institutions of education? Or will a rather unlikely picture emerge that shows our elected officials and public servants have resisted the lure of the fast dollar to pay back campaign favors?

Call us cynics, but we would place our nickel bet on the latter.

The learning and blundering people will live on...