Thousands of Tulsans have been waiting for the results of the special audit of Tulsa Public Schools. We all suspected the results would be bad, and they are. It’s like waiting for the results of that final exam you really didn’t prepare for but hoped you could squeak out a passing grade only to get waylaid with a big fat F.
Well, the financial management practices of TPS just got a big fat F from Auditor Cindy Byrd. After nearly 2 years of work and tremendous resistance from TPS officials, the audit indicates that multiple administrators “created and fostered a culture” of non-compliance and ongoing lack of internal controls that “potentially placed millions of taxpayer dollars in jeopardy.”
This lack of controls left the door wide open for former TPS Chief Talent & Equity Officer Devin Fletcher to embezzle over $600,000. He is currently serving a 30-month prison sentence for his crime.
The TPS Executive Director of Bond & Energy Management Chris Hudgins perpetrated what sure sounds like a kick back scheme with hundreds of thousands of dollars going to his personal company from a school vendor.
Materials for Critical Race Theory and other discriminatory wokeism concepts were purchased with $5.3 million in violation of the law put in place by HB 1775.
Out of $37.7 million of expenditures from 2015 to 2023 with 90 vendors and 900 invoices, the audit team found 1,450 discrepancies! What about all the hundreds of millions of expenditures over that time, they didn’t examine? The potential for fraud, abuse and corruption with taxpayer money is astounding.
So if TPS was loaded with Phd’s and loads of administrators with master's degrees and has made a disaster of finances, what do you think is happening at Oklahoma’s other 500 school districts? The time has come for a forensic audit of every school district in the state.