Information is currency for democracy.
- Thomas Jefferson
A day without sunshine is like, you know,
night. -
Steve Martin
Education is unique among consumer products;
when it fails to work as advertised, it's the customer that gets labeled as
defective. - Kevin
Killion
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Courage is the most important of all
the virtues, because without courage you can't practice any other
virtues consistently. You can't be consistently kind or fair or
humane or generous, not without courage, because if you don't have
it, sooner or later you will stop and say, "The threat is too much.
The difficulty is ...too high. The challenge is too great. ~ Maya
Angelou
March 17, 2010
Question of
the Week
Why does Nola Wellman
want to hide her travel receipts from the public?
Eanes ISD
Superintendent Nola H. Wellman doesn't want to submit travel expense
reports. In what can only be perceived as her latest
"work-around" to the public's right to know, Nola asked the "trustees" to just pay her $10,000 as part of
her salary from which she will pay her travel expenses.
Nola's scheme benefits
her personally in several ways. Since she will no longer submit
travel expense reports for reimbursement, the receipts related to her
travel for district business are no longer public information, the
public cannot track her travel expenses, the board cannot cut
her travel budget, and she can keep any portion of the $10K not
spent on travel for her personal pocketbook. As an added bonus,
she also doesn't have to follow those bothersome state laws regarding limits on spending for hotel
rooms, meals and transportation.
Here's more: the Texas
Retirement System will increase her benefits based on that extra $10K of salary.
And doesn't it seem as if Nola can now claim these district travel expenses on her
personal federal
income tax form as an exemption?
When KeepEanesInformed requested public information related
to this issue, Nola Wellman tried to withhold the documents by requesting a
ruling from the Attorney General's Office. However the OAG ultimately ruled that
all of the docs are public. In one released letter, her attorney explains that
she (Nola) "may have an opportunity to deduct these business related expenses
for federal income tax purposes."
So on one hand ... the travel expenses are no longer
district travel so the receipts are closed to public inspection yet she may
claim the travel expenses as business travel on her federal income tax report?
And then she also claims the travel expenses as salary for increased financial
benefit from TRS.
Only Clint Sayers spoke for the
taxpayers and against the move to give Nola more money and hide her travel
expenses from the public. Mr. Sayers commented in open session of the
board:
"It is hiding expenses and that's one of the
reason she wanted to have this in her salary, that's what she told us, so it
would not be subject to open records, that's exactly one of the reasons, it was
that and the TRS." Mr. Sayers then voted against the renewal of Wellman's
contract.
