TEA report on Donna ISD made public
School district attorney denies any laws were violated, says there's nothing to hide
DONNA — The Donna school district might have violated state nepotism laws, bought school materials without following proper purchasing procedures and failed to conduct criminal background checks on employees, according to a preliminary report written by the Texas Education Agency.
The school district released the report Tuesday, three months after the Texas attorney general’s office declared the report to be a public document. The school district subsequently filed suit against the attorney general’s office, but the school board voted Monday night not to pursue that litigation, said Donna school district attorney Jacques Treviño.
“The public was starting to believe the school district is hiding something, but we have nothing to hide and thought it best just to release the report,” Treviño said.
“We want to stress it’s just a preliminary report, and we adamantly deny we have violated any laws.”
The report was scheduled to be posted on the school district’s Web site Tuesday afternoon but was not up as of 7 p.m. The Monitor did not read the actual report but had its contents read over the phone by two separate sources.
Also noted within TEA’s report as potential violations were Superintendent Joe Gonzalez and other employees’ pay and benefits, the disbursement of federal grant money and the district’s budgetary procedures.
“We knew all this. It was just a matter of it coming it out,” said Rachel Martinez, a Donna resident who filed the open records request that led to the attorney general’s opinion.
The TEA conducted an investigation in Donna last July after receiving complaints from an unnamed source, believed by school district officials to be ex-chief finance officer Chris Thanedar. Thanedar was suspended by the school district last year and subsequently filed a whistleblower lawsuit claiming the district covered up instances of extortion, bribery and fraudulent overpayments worth $30 million.
The school district has denied those allegations.
The TEA is expected to release its final report on the Donna investigation within coming weeks, but that deadline has been repeatedly pushed back by the agency.
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James Osborne covers McAllen and general assignments for The Monitor. You can reach him at (956) 683-4428.
