|
 Oakland
Schools Probed
by Jennifer Chambers, The Detroit News, November 9, 2003
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Sitting at her
dining room table surrounded by stacks of documents, Ruth
Johnson is fast on the paper trail.
For the last nine months, Johnson, a state representative from
Holly, has spent hundreds of hours day and night trying to
understand the inner workings of a bureaucracy like the Oakland
Intermediate School District, how it spends a $240 million
budget and why, in Johnson's words, it wastes so much taxpayer
money.
It's the middle of the afternoon on a weekday and Johnson, a
term-limited Republican and former public school teacher, again
finds herself paging through reams of papers from the Oakland
ISD, the result of 23 Freedom of Information Act requests, only
to find duplicates of documents or papers she never requested at
all.
"There are more questions than answers after looking at the
Oakland ISD," Johnson said from her home in northwest Oakland
County. "I've never seen such deceit and deception. I've never
been stonewalled like I have here.
"And who pays for it the most? Kids with special needs. I can't
think of anything lower than that."
Johnson's first encounter with the Oakland ISD came earlier this
year when she read the Whall Report, a six-month independent
accounting study examining spending practices and contract
awards at the Oakland ISD, which provides special and vocational
education services for all of Oakland County's 28 local
districts.
What Johnson found stunned her: a contract paying $8,054.50 an
hour, a maze of companies that millions of dollars flow to and
through involving no-bid contracts and administrators and their
offspring involved in businesses that the ISD had contracts
with.
Johnson then began doing her own research. She fired off request
after request and found questionable travel expenses by board
members and top administrators to exotic destinations, golf
games by a district lobbyist in Palm Springs and tours to Poland
by an administrator -- all at district expense.
"It was just amazing when you read this -- travel expenses of
$500,000, purchasing cards among the staff, Waterford crystal,
lots of booze," Johnson said.
At the time the intermediate school district had come under fire
for using $18 million in special education dollars to build a
$30 million administration building. Johnson found the former
administration building was costing the ISD a $1 a year with 50
years left on its lease.
Johnson responded by introducing several bills that would
require more accountability of intermediate school districts.
She also formed and now leads a House Intermediate School
District Review Subcommittee and obtained subpoena power, which
Johnson says she is ready to use if the Oakland ISD continues to
be uncooperative with her requests for information.
While many support her work, Johnson has her critics.
The top administrator for Oakland Schools, Dan Austin, said he
supports Johnson's efforts to create accountability, yet his
frustration with the state representative stems from Johnson's
repeated claims that the Oakland ISD is refusing to send her
documents.
Oakland Schools has sent Johnson 24,000 pieces of documentation,
Austin said.
"We've given her everything we've got. I've asked her, just tell
me something you don't have, just tell me,' " said Austin, who
was demoted by the board last month from interim superintendent
to deputy superintendent.
Austin said Johnson doesn't need information on 52 contracts she
requested to pass her package of bills.
"You don't have to attack people. If you have good public policy
issue -- run the bills and go with what you got," Austin said.
"I don't know what she wants. She won't meet with me. She has
refused to meet with the board."
Michael Flanagan, executive director of the Michigan Association
of Intermediate School of Administrators, has said he fears
legislative involvement may now be getting out of hand because
of the situation in Oakland.
Flanagan agreed there needs to be reform, "but what I'd worry
about is if this gets to be a witch hunt."
Others see Johnson's efforts as their best hope in reforming the
Oakland ISD and making individual board members and
administrators accountable for what they spend.
Burke Cueny, chairman of Citizens United to Reform Oakland
Schools, described Johnson as honest, dedicated and tenacious.
The group has filed its own FOIA requests and continues to call
for the three remaining board members to step down.
"We love her for the subpoena rights she got in Lansing," Cueny
said of Johnson. "That money should be going to the students.
When you see this kind of fat being spent on administration and
inefficiencies, we say, 'Good for you, Ruth.' The taxpayers are
not getting what they are being charged for. It's time other
state reps and state senators got on the stick."
Johnson's committee is reviewing the role of ISDs in various
areas of the state, identifying what works and determining what
can be done to improve educational resources and services for
students. The committee already has held hearings in Ottawa
County and Indian River.
Last month Johnson canceled a public hearing on ISDs in Pontiac,
saying Oakland Schools continues to withhold information on
no-bid contracts and the purpose and costs associated with some
contracts. The hearing will be rescheduled at a later date.
"I'm ready to do whatever it takes" to get the information,
Johnson said, including sending subpoenas to board members and
district administrators.
"I can't change what's already happened, the $30 million
administration building and kids who've gone without services,"
Johnson said. "At least I can make it sure it doesn't happen
again."
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