Shields - Eanes Lobbyist

ABOUT BRAD SHIELDS AND EANES ISD ...

Sloppy, inaccurate record-keeping is one highly effective barrier to accountability.

After year-long delay, Texas Education Agency investigates the district's relationship with lobbyist BRAD SHIELDS and finds Eanes ISD does not comply with state law.

July 29, 2008 - We all talk about the importance of accountability in our public schools. Our students and teachers are held to high accountability standards. However, when districts fail to comply with Texas Education Code or the Texas Records Retention laws, there is no consequence and the administrators who are paid well to manage our districts are not monitored. How did we learn about the missing paper trail? What did we learn about TEA's willingness to investigate and monitor school districts? And what about these lobbyists who support and protect the educrat's special interests and not necessarily the interests of the children?

In October 2004, Keep Eanes Informed was contacted by community members with concerns that our school tax dollars were funding a lobbyist, BRAD SHIELDS. Mr. Shields's affiliations with Eanes are numerous; in fact, on his lobbyist website he advertises that he is the "Voice of the Chaps" at the Westlake High School football games and a past Eanes ISD board member. He also served as State Representative Turned Professional Lobbyist Todd Baxter's campaign manager. We wondered - is he now also the district’s (tax-funded) lobbyist?

Dianna Pharr contacted Nola Wellman and the superintendent denied the speculation. However, at the beginning of 2005, the check register told another story; the district was indeed paying Mr. Shield's thousands of dollars. Documents indicated that Mr. Shields emailed his requests for payment to the superintendent and she signed her approval each time. The concern grew when, in response to public information requests, backup documentation for these expenses did not include agreements, contracts, or receipts. The paper trail was absent.

BRAD SHIELDS was paid without any form of agreement in place and without receipts! Keep Eanes Informed requested that the Texas Education Agency (TEA) investigate, the agency delayed. Approximately one year later, TEA ruled that the superintendent's approval of thousands of dollars of our education dollars in expenditures to a professional lobbyist, BRAD SHIELDS, without a contract in place and without obtaining receipts for expensive meals does not comply with the Texas Education Code or the state records retention laws. Public school district administrators have control of our checkbook and yet, where is the accountability or consequence for noncompliance with important laws?

Even more troubling, when Dianna Pharr requested an investigation into the apparent expenditures of school tax dollars by the Eanes ISD superintendent to a professional lobbyist without contracts in place and without receipts to document the expenses, Nola Wellman met with the TEA and for quite some time, the investigation appeared to be derailed. TEA gave Eanes ISD several "extensions on time" because apparently Eanes needed more time to “find” the requested documents. The district's inability to respond to TEA's request for information further illustrates the problem with Eanes ISD recordkeeping.

In early 2008, when it appeared that the investigation was stalled, thereby protecting Eanes ISD from accountability, Dianna Pharr wrote to Robert Scott, TEA Commissioner and reminded him the TEA has a legal responsibility to monitor Texas school districts. In the end, regardless of numerous time extensions granted by TEA, Eanes ISD found no documents, no contracts, and no receipts to support the expenditures to BRAD SHIELDS. After a year-long delay, the Texas Education Agency finally issued a written ruling Eanes ISD did not comply with state records retention laws or the Texas Education Code when the district paid thousands of dollars to professional lobbyist (and former Eanes ISD board member) BRAD SHIELDS without a contract in place and without obtaining required receipts.

TEA found that:

Eanes ISD is paying thousands of our education tax dollars to private lobbyist (past school board member) BRAD SHIELDS without the required contract in place and this does not comply with the Texas Education Code or reflect "good business practices".

Although required by law, Eanes ISD could not produce receipts to support the expenses (including a $489.00 for "two meetings" that may have been held at the Moonshine Bar and Grill) reimbursed to BRAD SHIELDS by Eanes ISD. Emails obtained from a state representative appear to indicate that the Eanes ISD superintendent may have been invited to those "two meetings".

Eanes ISD has apparently destroyed or "misplaced" the receipts for a TASB trip Shields took while he was an Eanes ISD board member. Eanes ISD taxpayers, not the private company TASB, funded that costly trip to Washington, D.C. When TEA requested those receipts, even after a year delay, Eanes finally admitted that the district could not produce the receipts.

Accurate recordkeeping must be in place so that the public can follow the money.

When Texas school districts fail to create contracts or obtain receipts before reimbursement, there is no transparency and no accountability for the school administrators who hold the checkbook. Sloppy, inaccurate record-keeping is one highly effective barrier to open government.

TEA helped Eanes ISD by stalling the investigation for a full year.

The initial investigator worked diligently but he disappeared from TEA about two months later.

And TEA helped one final time ... there were absolutely no consequences to Eanes ISD and no further monitoring.

Fired TEA workers sue agency

One who worked in watchdog division said he was told not to investigate allegations of payments to superintendent's wife.