El Paso school board trustees file personal financial statements; EPISD managers do not
El Paso school board trustees had until April 30 to file their personal financial statements.
This comes after all the county’s six state representatives sponsored the bill in 2013. This law came into being after at least 10 people pleaded guilty to either bribing or taking bribes in El Paso County’s largest school districts.
While the goal is keep elected officials honest, not all trustees were on board with making their personal finances public.
“It is definitely going to be an intrusion into the board’s privacy,” said YISD Board President Patricia Torres-McLean.
“We’re being bullied by our state legislature and it’s time that it stop,” said Canutillo ISD Board Trustee Armando Rodriguez.
“The more transparency we can get, the more that we can judge a candidate for trustee, the better information we have, I think is absolutely critical to us,” said El Paso ISD Board President Dee Margo.
The form is 25 pages, and asks each trustee to declare sources of income, and to list stocks, bonds and real estate owned, including those of their spouse and dependent children. It went into effect this year, and will sunset in 2019.
The goal: to keep trustees from entertaining any financial conflicts of interest. State Sen. Jose Rodriguez wrote last year, “I can find no legitimate reason that school board members should be held to a lower standard than City Council Members, County Commissioners, or State Representatives and Senators.”
Even so, the Canutillo and Ysleta board pushed back against the law. YISD Trustee Shane Haggerty confirmed his board spent upwards $30,000 tax dollars to find a way around it.
“People who are going to be corrupt aren’t going to put that information on a paper,” Rodriguez said.
“All this is going to do in my mind is dissuade people from becoming board members, and ultimately its going to hurt the very children we’re trying to help,” McLean said.
But to no avail. The Texas attorney general ruled last fall that even if a trustee resigns, or chooses to not run again, if they’re in the seat January 1st 2015, they have to file. Everyone has to file or face fines up to $10,000 and six months in jail.
This directly applies to YISD Trustee Marty Reyes who after 14 years, is choosing not to run again. She filed, according to the district, along her six other YISD board members. Armando Rodriguez, filed, along the all six other Canutillo trustees. Every Socorro ISD trustee filed.
The ones who didn’t: the Board of Managers, who were not elected but appointed after the corruption surfaced at EPISD. Margo said County Judge Veronica Escobar specifically told the board it didn’t have to.
