Ysleta ISD board removes cap on board travel

The Ysleta ISD board voted 4-2 to remove the cap on its $28,000 travel allowance Wednesday night.

YISD trustees get $28,000 to spend on travel, or $4,000 per person. This is taxpayer money set aside to for training and conferences outside of El Paso.

YISD trustee Mike Rosales is preparing to represent El Paso during the upcoming legislative session. For that, he says he’d need to attend a training in Boston this June. Only problem is, the board already spent its travel money. Some board members don’t believe any more should be spent.

” The state does not require tens, 20, 30, 40 hours of training,” said trustee Patricia McClean. “Since I was elected a board member, I was told very early on, you can get your training locally. You don’t even have to travel.”

School boards are made up of unpaid volunteers, who make big decisions, such as choosing a superintendent and plan a district’s budget. The argument is trustees need to attend training so they know what they’re doing.

“I am not out to spend the taxpayer’s money,” Rosales said. “But if I was elected to do a position, I want to be prepared to be as knowledgeable as possible.”

“Certainly he or no one else on that board is fiscally irresponsible,” said board President Shane Haggerty. “This is the most fiscally responsible board I’ve ever had the pleasure of working with.”

Last year, Canutillo spent $60,000 on travel, El Paso ISD spent $12,000, Ysleta ISD spent $23,000, and Socorro ISD spent $36,000.

ABC-7 has covered board travel in-depth, asking whether it is a waste of taxpayer dollars or an investment in education?

In April 2015, the ABC-7 I-Team uncovered the Canutillo School Board approved a 75 percent increase to its travel budget last month. It’s the highest budget for any school board in El Paso County.

The Canutillo school board came under media scrutiny last year, for spending $30,000 to attend a single conference in New Orleans.

The latest budget change means the Canutillo board’s annual travel budget is now $20,000 higher than any other local board’s. ABC-7 asked board President Laurie Searls in a phone interview about the budget.

ABC-7: Why does the Canutillo Board need $20,000 more than any other board to travel and to get training?

Laure Searls: Probably because we’re really well trained.

Last month the Canutillo board voted to add an additional $25,000 to the board’s travel account, which was already at $32,800, bringing their total to $57,800 a year.

The board says historically their budget has been $50,000. Searls said she wasn’t sure why the amount was lower this year, and this amendment was meant to the budget back to what they’re used to.

“Sometimes one trustee might go somewhere, at other times it might be half-a dozen trustees going somewhere,” said CISD Spokesman Shane B. Griffith.

But where are these unpaid, elected volunteers going?

The Canutillo board travel policy allows them to go training and conventions hosted official associations such as by the Texas Association of School Boards. It also allows them to travel to any conference that impact the operation of the district, or a trustee can attend events if they served in leadership roles for other school board associations.

“We’re hiring a superintendent, we’re evaluating a superintendent, we’re setting a tax rate, we’re setting a budget,” Searls said. “I think it would be real bad mismanagement if we weren’t trained in doing that.”

But Canutillo’s board oversees one of the county’s smallest school districts, serving just over 6,000 students. El Paso ISD has 60,000, Ysleta ISD has 42,000, and Socorro ISD has 43,000.

Does that mean these other boards are under trained? Or is Canutillo wasting taxpayers dollars on unnecessary training?

“I don’t explain that,” Searls said. “There’s no explaining. I don’t know what to tell you.”

Out of seven trustees last year Armando Rodriguez logged about 73 training hours, traveling to San Antonio, Dallas, and an unnamed, non-TASB 2-day trip to San Diego.

Searls came in second, with 64.55 hours logged including some of those same trips. The rest hover from 43 hours to 3.

“I think what we have to take a look at here is a return on that investment, as opposed to a return on that expense,” Griffith said.

The investment is something Canutillo stands by. Searls points to paying for every student to go to Lubbock to watch football team play in the state semi-finals.

“I would never be the one to tell a board member you’re not going to go get educated,” Searls said. “That’s the Canutillo way, we pretty much let everybody go everywhere.”

Searls added the CISD board is in consistent lockstep with each other, there’s no infighting and the board continually votes unanimously together. Searls said “that’s special.”