YISD board meeting canceled due to trustee no-shows
The Ysleta Independent School District board meeting scheduled for Wednesday evening was canceled after only three trustees and Superintendent Xavier De La Torre showed up. There were not enough people present to have a quorum.
The agenda 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 item 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.
De La Torre addressed the possibility of an audit.
“I think what the audit does is kind of drag it out and we have such terrific momentum going in this school district. And it’s being driven by comments, a fairy tale in the sewer of social media,” De La Torre 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 needs to pay almost $7,500 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 one 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 $7,500, but to me, that’s a very cheap $7,500 in order to let the public know.”
“They may think they have a responsibility to the community to be as thorough as possible. All of the information that the external auditor would have for their review has also been provided to each of the seven trustees. So they have had a number of days to look at receipts, reimbursements, expenses and things like that,” De La Torre said.
Earlier, Superintendent De La Torre released 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.”
