Audit: No wrongdoing by EPISD’s Byrd; Trustee and Board President still at odds

A review into alleged conflict of interest on the part of El Paso Independent School District Trustee Susie Byrd found no wrongdoing.

However, a letter by Board President Trent Hatch, and Byrd’s response to the audit, point to conflict between the two as Byrd accuses Hach of directing a “biased report” intended to be a political weapon, and he calls her allegations, “irresponsible.”

“Any suggestion that the review process was manipulated or altered is false and without merit,” Hatch wrote in a letter to trustees and released by EPISD.

The review of the allegations involving campaign activities between May 1, 2017 and April 12, 2018 was conducted by the firm Gibson Ruddock Patterson (GRP) LLC.

The report’s summary states there is “no indication of inappropriate communications between a Trustee and a campaign contributor/vendor.”

In February 2018, EPISD Trustee Mickey Loweree told ABC-7 she was concerned about what she believed to be a lack of transparency and a conflict of interest on the part of fellow trustee Susie Byrd. At the time, Loweree said she did not know Byrd was campaign manager for Veronica Escobar, who at the time was running for Congress in the Democratic primary against former EPISD Board President Dori Fenenbock. “There was a complete lack of accountability and impartialness from Trustee Byrd,” Loweree said at the time.

“I think anybody who knows me, who reads the newspaper, knows that I’ve been the campaign manager since the beginning of the campaign,” Byrd told ABC-7 at the time. “I haven’t hidden that. I’ve been very transparent about that.”

Escobar and Fenenbock were pitted in a bitter race that exposed tension within the EPISD leadership, with Superintendent Juan Cabrera supporting Fenenbock and Byrd supporting Escobar. Both sides claimed improprieties.

The audit, dated July 26, was posted on the EPISD website by the auditor on Friday at 4:30 p.m., but Byrd and Hatch had sent letters about the audit to their fellow trustees leading up to its release.

In a response to the results of the audit dated August 13, Byrd states, “GRP found no evidence I solicited campaign donations for any of the four campaigns I worked on during the review period, nor any conflict of interest between my job as a campaign manager and my role as a trustee.”

Hatch agreed that no law or policies were violated, but “(the audit) did bring to light the need to strengthen our policies to prevent the perception of, or actual, wrongdoing by Trustees in the future.”

GRP recommended beefing up the district’s two-paragraph policy and emulating the policy at Houston ISD, which is six pages long.

The audit mentioned two instances where an EPISD vendor made contributions of “less than $1,000” to the Escobar campaign in October 2017 and the $100,000 contract was awarded in February 2018. The audit did not establish quid pro quo.

Byrd claims even the mention of the contract intends to cast a shadow of impropriety as each contribution was only $250 dollars. She says there were other campaign contributors who appealed the board’s decision to deny them a contract –and she voted to deny it– though the audit failed to report that.

The auditor noted they were not engaged to conduct a review that would offer a conclusion on the campaign activities of the trustees. “Had we performed additional procedures, other matters might have come to our attention that would have been reported to you,” the report stated.

Byrd criticized the board’s decision to solicit the audit at a cost of $15,000 to district taxpayers even after the board’s own legal counsel answered its questions regarding the allegations, she said.

She took exception when Hatch requested the auditor to review contracts awarded and compare them with campaign contributions. Byrd argues the whole board should have been consulted before the scope of the work was expanded.

“… The process organized by the Board President in coordination with GRP lacked the necessary transparency to ensure the Board –as the client of GRP– agreed with the scope of work,” Byrd wrote.

“The suggestion that individual board members and auditors acted in a manner that is unprofessional should be labeled as irresponsible,” Hatch replied on his letter.

This story will be updated.