LOCAL & STATE
John Neal
Illustration, The Oklahoma Eagle
On Feb. 26 Oklahoma State Auditor and Inspector Cindy Bird released a long-awaited state audit of Tulsa Public Schools, and it documented a wide range of financial irregularities, including bonus payments made to TPS employees by the TPS Foundation that bypassed school board authorization.
The 45-page report also gave details about the defrauding of TPS of more than $800,000 by former Chief Talent and Learning Officer Devin Fletcher. Fletcher was later criminally convicted and ordered to pay restitution.
The comprehensive review of TPS’s finances dates to July 2022, when Tulsa Public School Board members Jennettie Marshall and E’Lena Ashley requested that the state audit the TPS district. Their request was considered unusual and controversial, mainly because it required action from an unlikely ally — Gov. Kevin Stitt.
Marshall and Ashley, both African American, had long been critical of financial information provided to the school board, frequently complaining at board meetings of incompleteness or lack of transparency. At the time, the two were viewed as outliers in a board that seemed uninterested in pursuing keen oversight of financial transactions made by TPS officials.
But during a meeting in the summer of 2022, then TPS Superintendent Deborah Gist told the board that tens of thousands of school district dollars had gone missing. That startling revelation in turn prompted TPS Marshall and Ashley to make the forensic audit request. The investigation of the missing funds eventually resulted in a former high-ranking school official’s criminal conviction. It would be two and a half years after the initial audit request that Byrd revealed the audit findings.
The audit period was from 2015 to 2023. More than 1,400 financial discrepancies were found over the eight years. Besides the defrauding and bonus payments, some of the more salient findings in the audit were the following:
- A systemic lack of internal controls and administration over the purchasing process.
- Invoices to TPS frequently lacked proper authorization or proof of actual costs, were insufficiently itemized, or lacked explanatory detail.
- Board policies had been violated or circumvented in some purchasing processes.
Digging deeper
The audit report provided dozens of examples of individual financial transactions that circumvented board purchasing policies or violated proper accounting practices, reflecting a lack of appropriate financial administration and internal controls. The section of the report that details these transactions is the most protracted and wide-ranging.
A careful examination of the examples reveals that most of the financial discrepancies occurred in the early to mid-term of the Gist administration from FY 2018 to FY 2020. Gist resigned in August 2023. The school board appointed Dr. Ebony Johnson permanent TPS Superintendent in December 2023.
The report makes this observation about the current administration concerning the purchasing process discrepancies. “The District has acknowledged its noncompliance with purchasing policies and laws. Steps have been taken to review and improve these processes. Guidance memos have been issued to steer the corrective process.”
The report several times assigns some of the blame to the TPS School Board for insufficient oversight. However, the report did not specify the actions the board failed to take or recommend any board policy changes. It suggests that the “board should oversee and approve these efforts to enhance purchasing policy compliance and ensure the future effectiveness of related policies and procedures.”
Extensive Fraud Revealed
While the State Auditor’s report found many irregularities in the purchasing and payment processes over the eight years under review, only one set of transactions resulted in a diversion of funds constituting “fraud”. But it was massive.
The case was first identified in June 2022. At that time, the Gist administration thought the loss of TPS funds was less than $20,000 and accepted the resignation of one employee.
However, over the following weeks and months, Bird, working with local and federal law enforcement officials, found that the transactions and schemes were much more extensive and involved multiple vendors and individuals. In the end, according to the report, $824,503 were diverted from TPS and the Foundation for Tulsa Schools.
The report identifies Fletcher, former Chief Talent And Learning Officer, as the perpetrator of the fraudulent scheme. The roost that he created involved paying false or padded invoices to five vendors, primarily for alleged consulting services. The report identifies five other TPS executives as “also approving invoices or payments.”
In October 2023, Fletcher pled guilty to conspiracy to commit wire fraud. He was sentenced to 30 months in prison and was ordered to pay over $600,000 in restitution. Gov. Stitt has asked the Oklahoma Attorney General to investigate whether other charges should be brought. Days after the report was released, TPS board members Marshall and Ashley called for a thorough review of the district’s policies and possible further investigations and actions.
HB 1775 violations
Gov. Stitt expanded the scope of the audit request to go beyond Marshall and Ashley’s request and include TPS compliance with controversial state law HB 1775. The Oklahoma Eagle has reported extensively on HB 1775, signed into law in 2021, and its intended efforts to suppress the truthful teaching of Black history and racial bias training. Tulsa Public Schools’ accreditation was downgraded in 2022 for an alleged violation of the statute, but it bolstered court efforts to overturn the law. (See https://theokeagle.com/2022/09/03/tulsa-public-schools-case-bolsters-legal-efforts-against-racially-discriminatory-law/) Stitt’s request of the State Auditor was to determine if TPS had committed additional violations.
Stitt also asked the auditor to determine if TPS “may have conducted a training,” referring to HB 1775, “which banned the teaching of critical race theory.” HB 1775 makes no reference to “critical race theory.” The law bans the use of eight “concepts.” Following a review of TPS training documents, primarily obtained by vendors, the auditor report states, “…the full extent of TPS’s compliance [with HB 1775] was undeterminable.”
The auditor does not mention that while the audit was underway, a federal District Judge had issued an injunction order halting the enforcement of key provisions of HB 1775 as reported by The Oklahoma Eagle in July 2024. (See https://theokeagle.com/2024/07/01/judge-rules-educators-may-teach-racial-history/)
DEI probe
Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) programs seek to safeguard the treatment of minorities from recruitment and application through retention and promotion in employment, education, and other social or economic arenas. They arose in the wake of racially motivated violence, particularly George Floyd’s murder.
As previously reported in The Oklahoma Eagle, a September 2021 survey found that “More than eight in ten (83%) of the 656 responding organizations say they have taken action on DEI initiatives in 2021, a 13-percentage point increase from 2020.”
Since that time, there has been an intense backlash against the program. (See https://theokeagle.com/2024/02/17/minority-opportunity-program-facing-elimination/ ) In December 2023, Gov. Kevin Stitt issued an Executive Order prohibiting DEI programs in state universities and agencies. However, neither HB 1775 nor state administrative rules ban DEI programs in public schools.
Nevertheless, in an apparent effort to suppress DEI programs, the Oklahoma State Department of Education issued an order requiring school districts to report “DEI-related expenditures” made during the 2022-2023 school year. Superintendent Gist responded by saying there were no such expenditures.
In her audit report, Bird investigated the TPS response.
As informed by the OSDE order, Bird broke the analysis into individual “concepts of diversity, equity, and inclusion.” Bird found that “TPS implemented equity principles by redistributing resources among schools… and incorporating this equity-based ideology in teaching and learning practices.” She concluded that “TPS did not correctly report all DEI related expenditures.”
TPS response
Tulsa Public Schools provided The Oklahoma Eagle with its initial response to the audit’s findings and a report on changes being made in the district’s financial administration. While the district broadly agrees on areas that need improvement, it continues to seek clarification on some of the state audit findings and challenges others.
In a statement, Ebony Johnson, TPS superintendent, stated that “most of the items we have already addressed during the two-and-a-half-year course of the audit.” Johnson added, “we’ve taken bold action with real-time oversight, instituted strong monitoring systems to ensure adherence to policy and procedures, and mandated new protocols that streamline verifications and approvals.”
TPS further provided a list of actions taken before receiving the audit and a 14-page report responding to the initial State Auditor and Inspector findings. In a press conference held just days after the audit report’s release, TPS Board members Marshall and Ashley vowed to continue to press for vigorous corrective actions and more robust district board oversight.
During a press conference on March 2 at the Greenwood Cultural Center, Marshall and Ashley praised the audit report as a good start. But they said that the probe must go further and called for a full audit.
“I know the governor has said he wants people prosecuted,” Marshall told the press conference. “If a full audit were to take place, I think a lot more would be revealed as well.”
