How Unrestrained Self-Dealing Is Wasting Our Money (and Stealing Education from Our Kids)
Arkansas has a law called “Ethical Guidelines and Prohibitions” for public schools. This law prohibits self-dealing by making it a criminal felony for district administrators, board members, or their family members to do side business with their district if they know they are directly orindirectly interested in the contract.
Administrators are supposed to file Conflict of Interest (COI) letters with their school district, detailing their affiliations with vendor/partner organizations. Once these COI forms are filed, the only way for a district to transact business with these conflicted vendors is for the Education Commissioner, Johnny Key, to write a letter of exemption. The commissioner must only grant these letters in “unusual and limited circumstances,” according to the law.
Little Rock School District, however, is pulverizing this law — and neither Johnny Key nor Attorney General Leslie Rutledge’s “Public Corruption Task Force” is stopping them.
Little Rock School District (LRSD) gave $150,000 in district funds to a church-based nonprofit called Tendaji Community Development Corporation during the 2018–19 school year. It’s a public/private partnership — where the public pays for everything, but only the privateers get any say in how the money gets spent.
The LRSD money, along with $150,000 per year in federal 21st Century Learning Community grants distributed by the Arkansas Department of Education (ADE,) enables Tendaji to offer Program I.M.P.A.C.T. (after-school care,) A.R.T. Summer Camp, and “Reclaiming Scholars” (an academic rehabilitation program that LRSD uses as an alternative to suspension at nine of its schools.)
Tendaji serves LRSD students on the campus of St. Mark Baptist Church. According to St. Mark’s annual report, 150 kids attended the Tendaji summer camp last summer, for an average of 23 days apiece. 187 attended Program IMPACT. Reclaiming Scholars serves nine of the schools in LRSD, but I don’t have access to the number of students who have participated. It sounds like the teachers of Tendaji are doing good work for these (relatively few) kids — but the teachers aren’t really the ones getting the money.
Tendaji told the ADE its “certified teachers” would earn $25/hr. Its “classified staff” were supposed to earn $18/hr. The lowest-paid staff members were supposed to earn $9.50/hr.
None of these Tendaji staffers are earning what Tendaji promised to pay them.
It’s not immediately clear why the Tendaji staff is earning so little with a budget so large. Based on what I’ve seen so far, I think Tendaji is overpaying for utilities and “indirect costs,” underpaying its staff, and still leaving taxpayer money unaccounted for.
Multiple sources familiar with St. Mark Baptist Church say Tendaji is funneling public money to the privately-employed pastoral staff of the church, and to Tendaji’s board of directors.
The Vice-President of Tendaji’s board is Lamarr Bailey, St. Mark’s Executive Pastor. Since Lamarr is the brother of Kelsey Bailey, Chief Financial Officer of LRSD, Arkansas law requires Kelsey Bailey to disclose Tendaji (and Lamarr Bailey, specifically) as a conflict of interest.
Last week, I sent a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request to LRSD’s superintendent, Mike Poore, asking for Kelsey Bailey’s legally-required COI disclosure statement. On May 21, 2019, Valerie Hudson responded (copying LRSD’s lawyer, Eric Walker) saying “no documents were found” responsive to my request. This seems like crucial evidence of an ongoing felony, to me. Mr. Walker might need to “take reasonable remedial measures” if he wants to keep his law license.
LRSD posts a “Notification Letter” to its administrators about COI statements on its public website. The letter reads, “All administrator employees are to complete this [Conflict of Interest disclosure] form and forward to the Human Resources Department. Failure to fully disclose could result in criminal felony charges being brought against the employee.”
Too bad none of LRSD’s administrators bothered to read their own letter, or follow the law.
Another LRSD central office administrator with a Tendaji conflict of interest is Fort Smith heiress Linda Young, LRSD’s Grant Director.
Incriminatingly, Linda’s job falls under Kelsey Bailey’s supervision in the organizational structure of the district — although, of course, Superintendent Mike Poore is the man at the top.
Linda Young filed a COI disclosure form with LRSD in 2001, long before Tendaji existed. Her out-of-date COI form affirms zero conflicts of interest.
When I started communicating with LRSD regarding the Tendaji conflicts of interest, LRSD’s Director of Procurement, Darral Paradis, explained:
Back in 2001, we had every district employee complete a conflict of interest form. An exception list was created for anyone with a possible conflict. Any new employee after this effort was to complete the forms with HR. HR was to submit to my office forms for any person claiming a conflict. Attached is the most recent exception list on file as we have not received forms from HR in many years. I’ve also attached a form for Linda Austin (Young) found back in 2001. Mr. Bailey was not yet an employee as he started in 2009? Mr. [Marvin] Burton told me he was at J.A. Fair — but I did not find a form for him with this school.
The HR (Human Resources) Director for LRSD is Robert Robinson. It is Robinson’s job to gather COI forms, and it’s Paradis’ job to compile them. This process hasn’t actually happened for the last “many years.” MANY YEARS of breaking the law, without an ounce of corrective oversight from the ADE.
Meanwhile, by serving as a “director” in LRSD and a member of the board of directors in Tendaji — without disclosing the conflict to the district — Linda Young is clearly breaking the law.
Hard to believe that Linda Young would risk a criminal felony charge over something like this — especially considering she is Robert A. Young III’s daughter, and heiress to the ArcBest fortune.Plus, she earned $111,047 at her LRSD central office job this year. Every public dollar spent on Young’s personal gain is one less dollar we can spend getting Arkansas’ schools out of the bottom tier.
Maybe Linda Young is using LRSD money to finish paying for the US Marshals Museum in Fort Smith…? The museum’s original plan was to name their main building for Linda’s parents, but to build it on the taxpayers’ dime. Fort Smith is already suffering through the loss of several major employers, but the Youngs still wanted working people to pay for their vanity project. Their effort failed at a special election on March 12, 2019. Fort Smith citizens believe scions of a city should help— not fleece — their community.
Will Little Rock citizens put their foot down, too? Self-dealing helps the rich and powerful help themselves — while our children pay the price.
The only person with the authority to exempt school districts from having to follow the “Ethical Guidelines and Prohibitions” laws prohibiting conflicts of interest is Education Commissioner Johnny Key.
According to A.C.A. § 6–24–106, “The commissioner may grant an approval [in writing] for a particular transaction or a series of related transactions. No approval shall be granted for a period greater than two (2) complete and consecutive fiscal years.” The ADE provides useful “Tier One Training” (mandatory for superintendents, including LRSD’s Mike Poore) that describes the process for applying for commissioner approval of a conflicted contract:
LRSD didn’t do that either. On May 22, 2019, I asked Commissioner Key whether he had written such exemption letters for Kelsey Bailey and Linda Young of Little Rock School District.
Key’s FOIA officer responded, the next morning, “ADE does not have any documents responsive to this request.”
Education Commissioner Johnny Key is the watchdog charged with holding public schools accountable for following state law. Usually, Key keeps public school districts on their toes by threatening state takeover. However, LRSD has been under state control (with Commissioner Key serving as de facto school board) since 2015. What consequences will Key give himself?
Johnny Key’s boss, Governor Asa Hutchinson (and his Walton-funded Republican Party,) favor the total dismemberment of state-controlled districts like LRSD, so they can sell the pieces to their friends — below market value.
If Key has deliberately avoided fulfilling the oversight responsibilities of a “school board” during his five years in control of LRSD, and his avoidance means his political allies and campaign donors can advance their profiteering agenda, isn’t that evidence of a conflict of interest right at the top?
I’m not a lawyer, judge, or jury. However, I’m hoping a lawyer, judge, and jury will take an interest. LRSD needs to quit threatening “criminal felony charges.” Empty threats are not enough to make people act right.
It’s time to prosecute the criminals and let Little Rock teachers do their jobs with administrators who have the ethical standards to be leaders— not just bosses.