YISD Board to consider auditing Superintendent’s finances

The Ysleta ISD school board meeting scheduled for Wednesday evening was canceled after only three trustees out of seven showed up.

The board was scheduled to vote on possibly auditing Superintendent Xavier De La Torre’s finances.

The agenda for a special meeting scheduled for Wednesday night, included one item: “Consider and take possible action to request that the Internal Auditor and/or Independent Auditors perform an audit of the Superintendent’s credit card charges, travel expenses and reimbursements to and from the district during the period of March 5, 2014 through September 23, 2016.”

YISD Board President Shane Haggerty told ABC-7, the vote stems from allegations the superintendent had a relationship with a district employee.

During a closed meeting earlier this month, board members told ABC-7 they planned to address the alleged relationship and discuss implementing a possible fraternization policy.

“From that meeting and from those allegations we ordered the credit card statements from our finance department and the finance department sent all of his credit card expenditures from the date of hire all the way through to the present and that information was passed out to each of the trustees,” Haggerty said.

Haggerty reviewed those statements and said he didn’t find any discrepancies in Superintendent De La Torre’s district spending. He added he doesn’t believe YISD doesn’t need to pay almost $7500 to have an audit done.

“If we have any questions, we’re able to come here and ask questions, which I’ve done. So for me, it’s a waste of money,” Haggerty said.

Board members learned of an alleged relationship between De La Torre and a district employee after a social media post showed them together during an out of town game.

Fraternization of employees is not against district policy and there’s nothing in the superintendent’s contract that forbids it from happening.

Board members told ABC-7 De La Torre admitted to the relationship but said it was over.

That’s when a possible audit was also brought up, and something board member Paul Pearson said needs to happen.

“Well, we all know of the recent things that have been going on and the public is somewhat upset about it I’ve gotten emails, letters to the editor of the newspaper, and so on and so forth. And of the things is that the board of trustees, we’re the stewards of the taxpayers money and we need to make sure the taxpayers money is spent the correct way,” Pearson said.

Pearson added the cost of an audit shouldn’t be an issue, when it comes to the public’s trust.

“You have to balance things out, you can look at it’s $7500, but to me, that’s a very cheap $7500 in order to let the public know.”

ABC-7 reached out the district and Superintendent De La Torre and received this statement: “The Ysleta Independent School District does not have a policy that addresses fraternization among employees. According to the Texas Association of School Boards (TASB), only four out of 1,054 school districts in the state have a fraternization policy, none of which are in El Paso County. The Superintendent’s contract does not address fraternization.”