Donna under a second TEA investigation
DONNA — Texas Education Agency investigators returned to the Donna school district Monday morning to look at how school officials are spending federal education money.
Ramón Medina, TEA’s director of grant audits, said he and his team would be on location for the week but declined to answer further questions.
Earlier this month, the state’s highest education authority released a report alleging the school district broke state purchasing laws when they failed to bid out $6.6 million in technology contracts under the Federal Communication Commission’s E-Rate program. That report was the product of a TEA investigation last year.
The Universal Service Administration Company, which administers E-Rate for the FCC, approved the contracts, but a TEA investigator maintained Monday that Donna was in violation.
“It doesn’t matter whether it’s in the federal rules.
“State law says any contract over $25,000 has to be competitively procured,” said Michael Richmond, investigations director in TEA’s financial audits division. The more restrictive of the two has to be followed.”
Three years ago, the Donna School Board voted to hand over all work upgrading the district’s computer network to Integrity Communications, a small firm in Corpus Christi. Originally, the work was opened to bid and divvied up between a number of different telecommunications companies.
TEA forwarded its report to state and local law enforcement for possible criminal prosecution.
The agency has not received any response from the authorities, Richmond said.
Donna school board members have denied any wrongdoing in their decision to award the contracts to Integrity.
“It’s federal funding. The federal government, they decide what we should do… don’t you think?” said Donna School Board President George Hernandez.
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James Osborne covers McAllen and general assignments for The Monitor. You can reach him at (956) 683-4428. For this and other local stories visit www.themonitor.com.
