March 2025 Archives

After years of dogged pursuit on the part of parents, three school board members, and other activists, the audit of Tulsa Public Schools was released on February 27, 2025, by State Auditor Cindy Byrd.

Here is the full audit report of Tulsa Public Schools. Here are State Auditor Cindy Byrd's presentation slides on the TPS audit. She first presented these slides to Tulsa 912 Project the night the audit was released and has since made this presentation in a number of other contexts, including the Statewide Charter School Board conference a week later, where I heard her presentation. It served as a stark warning to all of the charter school board members and administrators present.

Here are a few of my tweets from a first look through the audit report:

From @SAICindyByrd @TulsaSchools audit: "Sixteen of the 40 bonus payments, totaling $221,000, were issued to Broad Center - Yale School of Management fellows. Only one of the 16 Broad alumni remains with the District." Kudos to @OklahomaDOGE (aka Tulsa Parents Voice)

TPS audit p. 25: "TPS hosted events... where Broad Cohorts from across the nation attended meetings in Tulsa.... Broad Cohorts participated in multiple sessions and programing which included a Child Equity Index Exercise, and an event titled 'DEI at Night.'"

TPS audit p.26: "During the two years the program was in existence prior to its approval through official legislation, the Teacher Corps participants did not meet statutory requirements for teaching in the classroom...."

TPS audit p.26: "There was evidence that the participants did not have written contracts, were yet to be properly certified, and not all of the participants had obtained the required OSBI background check, all requirements of law."

TPS audit p.26: "From the program's inception, TPS administrators took extraordinary measures to avoid directly hiring and paying trainees... bypassing board-approved contracts & using vendors, such as TNTP & Snickelbox, to pay trainees, keeping them off the District's payroll."

TPS audit p.27: "The District should not have used their vendor relationships to circumvent law or policy for the payment of stipends. This behavior further contributed to the mismanagement, waste, and eventually the misappropriation of funds."

@SAICindyByrd @TulsaSchools TPS audit p.27: "Between SY2015 and SY2023... More than $37 million was expended [by TPS & Foundation] through various non-profit vendors including Growing Together, Teach for America, Educare, Reading Partners, City Year Tulsa, and Community in Schools Mid-America (CIS)."

@SAICindyByrd @TulsaSchools TPS audit p.27: "Growing Together invoices [$1.2million] lacked the detail required to verify that services billed and paid for by TPS occurred.... None of the 12 invoices were itemized and there was no supporting documentation attached to determine if deliverables were met."

@SAICindyByrd @TulsaSchools TPS audit p.27: "The District frequently divided consultant contract costs into equal monthly payments. This method eliminated transparency over how the contract payments were utilized thereby increasing the risk for misappropriation and/or improper/inflated billing."

@SAICindyByrd @TulsaSchools TPS audit pp.29-30: "Between SY2020 and SY2023 TPS paid [Tulsa Community Foundation] a total of $6,157,346 for Opportunity Project services.... administrative overhead costs were significant, accounting for more than 30% of total costs...."

@SAICindyByrd @TulsaSchools TPS audit p.30: "The Opportunity Project overbilled TPS a total of $96,401 for services during SY2022.... TPS paid The Opportunity Project's invoices without determining if the billing was correct."

@SAICindyByrd @TulsaSchools TPS audit p.30: "There was no evidence TPS reviewed the program costs or verified that the Opportunity Project billed them the correct amount."

@SAICindyByrd @TulsaSchools TPS audit p.30: "The Opportunity Project [TCF] overbilled the District a total of $96,401 for provider costs that were never incurred during SY2022. TPS submitted these invoices to SDE for reimbursement through the federal ESSER program."

@SAICindyByrd @TulsaSchools TPS audit p.31: "Jill Hendricks communicated to management of the Opportunity Project that TPS doesn't 'require that all the backup documentation is supplied along with the invoice...' but asked them to maintain it on site in the event SDE asked any questions."

@SAICindyByrd @TulsaSchools TPS audit p.31: "In the close-out of SY2022 invoicing, email communication between Hendricks and staff indicated that the Opportunity Project invoices for March, April, and May 2022 had been paid in early June
but were never properly approved." Image

@SAICindyByrd @TulsaSchools TPS audit p.32: "TPS submitted ESSER claim reimbursements using invoices that provided little to no information about the services provided resulting in federal funds being used to reimburse questioned costs totaling $4.9 million."

@SAICindyByrd @TulsaSchools TPS audit p33: "TPS submitted unallowable Opportunity Project expenditures totaling $110,801 to SDE obtaining improper ESSER fund reimbursements."

TPS audit p34: "TPS purchased & paid Trafera $1.347 million, full price, for 3,000 computers then agreed to allow Traferra to file for and receive the $1.2 million reimbursement from the program. This allowed the vendor to receive both full price payment & the reimbursement."

In 2016, recently elected school board member Dr. Jennettie Marshall called for an investigative audit of Tulsa Public Schools. In 2020, Tryg Jorgenson, director of Indian Education, requested that the State Auditor conduct an audit. A group of parents at Tulsa Parents Voice (now renamed Oklahoma D.O.G.E) took up the cause as part of a larger accountability effort. In July 2022, the same month that TPS Chief Learning Officer Devin Fletcher resigned, Governor Kevin Stitt formally requested the State Auditor to conduct the audit to investigate irregularities tied to vendor contracts and potential mishandling of public funds, misuse of Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief (ESSER) funds, and violations of HB 1775 and related administrative rules.

This public Facebook post comment from E'Lena Ashley, posting on May 17, 2021, a year before she ran for school board reflects what the public was observing as they attended TPS board meetings.

Is the TPS board Corrupt?

After tonight's meeting I have suspicions. With fraudulent payments to non existent organizations, to no transparency of how vendors are chosen. Unethical practices and misuse of 2015 Bond money! Designating funds to schools and then closing the schools ????.

I VOTE

'NO' more money forTPS!!!

#TPSfailedourchildren

The Sunday after the audit release, March 2, 2025, board members Jennettie Marshall and E'Lena Ashley held a press conference. This link leads to the full 90 minute video from Sunday's press conference. Dr. Marshall is the longest-serving member of the board, but she is not running for re-election. Ashley stated that Marshall had been fighting this fight for 8 years. She cited Jerry Griffin's resignation from the Finance Committee in 2022 as a significant milestone, exposing that board members were denied the information they needed to monitor the district's spending.

Marshall introduced a detailed discussion of the report:

It is incumbent upon us, now that the truth is out, that we help you understand how we got to this point....

What has happened, and it has been consistent in the eight years that I've been on the board, is that we had a culture of doing what we want to do regardless of what the law states or our own policy insists that we do and that was echoed in the report of our state auditor.

Some would ask, "Well, how did you know" -- and I've heard that question - "how did you know things weren't right?" From day one, when a school district declares that it's having to do a reorganization, which means means that many people lost their jobs behind the financial improprieties and the mismanagement of the district, and the criminal malfeasance of the board, who refuse to do their job.

Most of you have heard me say: "Friendships and kinships sink ships," meaning when we make our decisions based on our friendships and those that we're related to those that we play golf with, those that we sat down and have a Jack Daniels and Coke with those are bad decisions, because they are not informed decisions and the board has been guilty of making those decisions, even in the midst of being called out.

As Dr. Marshall went through and commented on the report, she said:

We like to use that word, "governance." The board's job is to govern. We're governance. Well, why is it that we go through the fact that we hire people, we do things, and to govern, you have to know and have information. To govern without information, being informed, what that is, is a rubber stamp and that is the problem that has existed over and over over again with the district.

Dr. Marshall indicated to her sorrow that despite new leadership, TPS administration is still not providing board members with the information they need to exercise financial oversight:

For those of you who have followed board meetings, how many times have you heard me ask, "What does this mean? What does this mean? And what has happened is, I've been shut down. And when we say, well, we have new leadership, and our new leadership says we're doing things a new way, let me take you back to February 10th of this year.

For the amended budget, in the amended budget, it said for 2022 2023, the budget was about $500 million, 23-24 it was $522 million, 2024-25, it was almost $800 million. When I was asking why, what I was told, "Dr Marshall, you have to look at the full report. you can't look at the bottom figures." I said, let's look at the figures under salaries in the report. It had salaries for certified staff, non-certified, and over $10 million set aside for "other." Who are the other? I went through that night that whole report. Well, who are the others? "We will have to get that information for you, we don't have it."

I went down in the report, and it said, for it had objects, other objects, and under that it had a section that stated judgments and indebtedness, and you go over to the 24-25 year, it had $174 million that they were requesting to be spent or projecting that was going to be spent in that area, and they wanted approval. The question again: What is judgments? What is indebtedness? Where are you getting these figures from? How did this come about? "Well, well, Dr. Marshall, we'll have to get back with you on it." Well, getting back to your board is not what you should do, because if you're coming to the fiduciary agents of your district, you need to come, as they say, locked and loaded with all the information. I shouldn't have to ask you ahead of time, you're asking me to administrate over the district's money with not enough information. But we're hearing we're doing things a new way.

RELATED: Stacey Woolley withdraws name from City of Tulsa Ethics Commission

Ineligible because she holds public office. She'd be perfect for the City of Tulsa Ethics Commission, because knowing when to look the other way is the most desirable quality in a Tulsa ethics commissioner.

Dr. Jerry Griffin, who unsuccessfully attempted to exercise financial oversight during his term on the board, spoke to KTUL when the audit was released.

"I still haven't seen anybody step forward and say we messed up," said former TPS board member Dr. Jerry Griffin. He was the first to call for an audit and that was roughly five years ago.

"And I was made fun of for it. I was humiliated, called names," he said.

Five years later he won't say, 'I told you so,' but he will tell you that part of what motivated him was a lack of information.

"I was on the finance committee. The finance committee was a sham. Nice PowerPoints, nice data, no real data," he said.

Did you ever get any of the information you requested? "Never. Never ever, ever, ever.," he said.

Any how can that be, I mean you were a board member? "When I would talk to our state senators and representatives they would say that, 'How could that be?'" he said.

As for who's to blame for the what the audit uncovered, Griffin puts that squarely on the board as a whole.

"I've not heard anybody from the board say we're responsible. The board is responsible. Period," he said.

"Did Dr. Gist mess up? No. It was the board that messed up because the board allowed her to do whatever she wanted to do," he said.

Three years ago when we asked Dr. Gist about the audit that was about to get under way she said, "I have been very clear that I welcome any review of our practices and processes."

Last week the current superintendent made an effort to emphasize that practices and processes have changed.

"Much more information about exactly what we're purchasing, what is going to be the return on investment, exactly what will the dollars actually pay for. So our team has shored up those practices," said Dr. Ebony Johnson.

"I know Dr. Johnson can do it but she's got to step out from the pack, she's got to denounce the past in no uncertain terms," said Griffin.

As for accountability, Griffin says he wouldn't be surprised if a lawsuit was on the horizon.

KOTV spoke before the audit release to former State Auditor Gary Jones:

"It's not just for the AG'S office or others; it's for the public as well," Jones said. "You want to see that their tax dollars are spent wisely."

However, some TPS board members have criticized the current auditor, saying the TPS audit was politically motivated. Jones disagrees.

If you've been driving on the Broken Arrow or Mingo Valley Expressways lately, you've seen some of the fruit of the US Supreme Court's McGirt ruling on law enforcement. It used to be if some idiot was tailgating you when you were already 10 MPH already over the speed limit, changing lane to lane and zipping through tiny gaps like a Grand Prix driver, the idiot was likely to be driving a BMW. A couple of years ago, it began to seem equally likely that the idiot's vehicle would have tribal tags, indicating the car was owned by someone with tribal citizenship.

This phenomenon seemed to emerge with the legal argument that city governments had no authority over tribal citizens to issue traffic citations. (E.g., Hooper v. Tulsa.) Nowadays there's no pattern to the reckless driving on Tulsa's expressways, perhaps because the jurisdictional question has created a sense of lawlessness, perhaps because the jurisdictional question has had a cooling effect on Tulsa Police, which used to have squads of motorcycles set up to nab reckless and unwary speeders. When I saw the gravel semi trailer on its side on eastbound 51 under southbound 169 last week, I surmised that the semi driver had had to make a split-second swerve to avoid a collision with a speeding, lane-switching car, lost balance, and tumped over.

Last November Tulsans foolishly elected a mayor who made tribal co-governance a centerpiece of his campaign. Monroe Nichols declared that he would no longer have the city contest any challenge by the tribes over the city's jurisdiction.

A NonDoc story last month reveals that the problem is worse than that: Nichols has ordered TPD to stop making criminal referrals to the Tulsa County District Attorney's Office if the suspect is a citizen of some tribe or another. On December 5, 2024, just before Nichols took office, the Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals ruled in O'Brien v. City of Tulsa that the City of Tulsa has concurrent jurisdiction to prosecute crimes committed by citizens of other tribes on a particular tribe's reservation.

The case involved an MMA fighter named Nick O'Brien, who looks like a white guy, but he happens to have Osage citizenship, so there's a special ancestor somewhere up his family tree. He was arrested on August 30, 2021, for DUI, open container, driving with an expired tag, driving left of center, and improper use of left lane, in a part of Tulsa that falls within the Creek Nation's historical boundaries. Municipal judge Marshall McCune denied dismissal of the charges based on McGirt but then later granted dismissal of the charges based on Hooper. City of Tulsa prosecutors, not yet under the authority of Nichols, appealed the dismissal.

District Attorney Steve Kunzweiler -- you know, the man that the voters, regardless of tribal status, elected to prosecute crimes in Tulsa County on our behalf -- says that he will use Open Records requests if necessary to get City of Tulsa arrest reports to ensure that criminals are prosecuted. Kunzweiler told NonDoc, "I have my belief that very few of these crimes are being actually fully prosecuted. I have enough information to suggest to me that we have people who are committing repeated DUIs and are still out on our streets. I'm not going to stand for that." Mayor Nichols replied that the City is "sitting on 400 cases and working with tribes to make sure those are also prosecuted." Earlier in the story, it's indicated that the city has not referred these cases for prosecution anywhere but will once some kind of agreement between the city and the tribes is negotiated and ratified.

Nichols denies Kunzweiler's voter-ratified authority over prosecuting crimes in Tulsa County. Instead, Nichols wants our DA to be content as a mere stakeholder among other stakeholders, with a seat at the table but not the authority he was elected to exercise. "I think Mr. Kunzweiler is going to have to understand that being the DA does not make you the king of everything. Being the DA makes you one of the stakeholders -- like being mayor or being a police chief (or) like being the leader of a tribal nation -- it makes you a stakeholder in making sure this is the safest city in the country."

This idea of "stakeholders" exposes the anti-democracy heart of tribal co-governance. Prosecution won't be the sole responsibility of an official who was elected by the voters and can be denied re-election by the voters; it will be controlled by a group of stakeholders which is not accountable to the voters as a group and which includes stakeholders elected by a tiny minority of a tiny minority of voters, unaccountable to the vast majority.

NonDoc's story also discusses lawsuits filed by the lame-duck Biden Justice Department against two other DAs, Matt Ballard (Rogers, Craig, Mayes) and Carol Iski (Okmulgee, McIntosh), with parallel suits by the Muscogee (Creek) Nation against Ballard and Iski. The Creek Nation has also now filed suit against Kunzweiler and Tulsa County Sheriff Vince Regalado. Gov. Stitt has asked the federal court to allow him to intervene on behalf of the State of Oklahoma in the MCN case against the City of Tulsa; Mayor Nichols is committed to capitulating to the tribes, but Stitt sees the dangerous implications for law enforcement for the State and the counties and municipalities in the eastern half of the state. All of these lawsuits are about one thing: Stopping the State of Oklahoma, its DAs, its county sheriffs, and its local police departments from prosecuting any Indian from anywhere who breaks the law in "Indian country."

Kunzweiler rightly points out, as we have pointed out here, that in 1907 no one -- not the federal government, not the state government, and not the tribal governments -- believed that there were still Cherokee, Creek, Chickasaw, Choctaw, and Seminole reservations on which the tribal governments (which were being wound down as unnecessary) held criminal jurisdiction.

In its amicus brief in one of the Creek lawsuits, the Cherokee Nation says that it spent $74 million to beef up its criminal justice system to handle cases that were previously prosecuted by DAs. Think about that. What exactly has the tribal maneuvering post-McGirt done to benefit their citizens? $74 million that might have gone to benefit tribal citizens directly is instead being used to create a duplicative system of courts and allowing child molesters like Jimcy McGirt to go free.

Good-hearted but poorly informed people who are casually following this legal struggle may think of this as yet another attempt by evil Caucasians to oppress the long-suffering and noble Indigenous Americans. I haven't been able to find any statistics yet on the distribution of Degree of Indian Blood among tribal citizens, but the math involved in membership growth through generations of intermarriage suggests that most of the beneficiaries of this jurisdictional confusion will be mostly-white criminals with one Indian ancestor 10 generations back and no cultural connection to the tribe of which he is a citizen.

Voters in the City of Bethany have banned city subsidies to private businesses and have enabled the recall of elected officials. The propositions were on the February 11, 2025, municipal ballot, along with elections for city council and mayor.

State Rep. Tom Gann (R-Inola), a vocal critic of taxpayer subsidies to attract businesses, posted the following post-election press release from Bethany City Councilor Chris Powell, who is also the State Chairman of the Libertarian Party of Oklahoma:

Press Release Bethany voters pass subsidy prohibition, recall procedure

BETHANY - Voters in Bethany passed two propositions placed on the ballot by initiative petition, one creating a procedure by which a city elected official could be recalled and another that prohibits the city from subsidizing private businesses. The subsidy prohibition [Propositon 4] received 57% support while the recall procedure [Proposition 3] earned 64% of the vote. Two other propositions put forward by a charter review committee, removing an obsolete personnel board and allowing the city to trade surplus materials, also passed by large margins.

The subsidy prohibition and recall procedure questions qualified for the ballot by initiative petitions carried out by Councilman Chris Powell who gathered signatures of over 400 voters for each. Several members of the council, including incumbents Steve Palmer and Marilyn McPhail as well Jeff Knapp who recently resigned his council seat to run for Mayor, publicly took positions against the prohibition of subsidies. The council passed a resolution in December opposing the proposition, with Powell being the lone vote against the resolution. Palmer and McPhail lost their re-election bids and Knapp was defeated for Mayor by Amanda Sandoval.

Powell was motivated to carry out the initiatives after a charter review committee proposal for a recall procedure was blocked from the ballot by council. After deciding to petition for recall, Powell chose to petition at the same time for the proposal to prevent the city from subsidizing private businesses. Powell said, "We have had a number of these subsidy deals that in my view were unnecessary to support a business that would have been successful regardless or worse, supported a business venture that failed and left us with empty storefronts. I don't believe these tax rebates and TIF subsidies are proper, the track record in Bethany shows they haven't worked out or weren't needed, and on Tuesday the voters showed that they agree with that viewpoint."

Recent criticism of subsidy programs such as the state funds going to electronic vehicle manufacturer Canoo, which filed for bankruptcy last month, as well as concerns about Tax Increment Finance (TIFs) may have played a part in voter's support for the subsidy ban proposition. Norman's Arena TIF has faced a referendum petition that gathered far more signatures than necessary but is now tied up in court by TIF proponents with legal challenges over technicalities, and Rep. Tom Gann (R-Inola) has introduced HB1069 which would require proposed TIFs to undergo greater scrutiny and go to a vote of the people before being enacted. "People are starting to become more aware of the subsidy programs and don't like what they see," Powell said, "we're likely to see more rejection of these handouts to businesses and developers whenever they can be forced to put them before the voters."

Contact

Chris Powell
405-408-4898
okcspowell@gmail.com

Gann comments:

A local official in Bethany, OK saw through all the hype about subsidies and Tax Increment Financing Districts. He took action and informed the people. The people responded and stood up for their community and rejected the concept of subsidies and incentives, will others follow?

HB1069 which would have required TIF districts to be voted on by the people failed in the General Government Committee on the same day this email was written. HB1069 received 2 YES votes and 5 NO votes.

State Reps. Derrick Hildebrant (R-Catoosa) and Gabe Woolley (R-Broken Arrow) voted in favor of HB1069; Stacy Jo Adams (R-Duncan), Cyndi Munson (D-OKC), Ellen Pogemiller (D-OKC), Eric Roberts (R-OKC), Judd Strom (R-Copan) voted against.

The Bethany City Council approved the following resolution opposing the ban on subsidies at its December 17, 2024, meeting (page 64 of the PDF). According to the minutes, Mayor Nikki Lloyd, Councilors Ken Smart, Marilyn McPhail, Peter Plank, and Kathy Larsen voted yes; Chris Powell voted no. McPhail lost her re-election bid; the other councilors voting yes won't face re-election until 2027. Mayor Lloyd did not run for re-election.

RESOLUTION NO. 1710

A RESOLUTION OF THE CITY COUNCIL OF THE CITY OF BETHANY, OKLAHOMA OPPOSING PASSAGE OF THE FEBRUARY BALLOT ITEM CONCERNING SUBSIDIES TO BUSINESSES AND CORPORATIONS, A CHARTER AMENDMENT.

WHEREAS, an initiative petition ballot measure proposing an amendment to the Charter of the City of Bethany to prohibit the subsidy of businesses and corporations with public funds controlled by the City of Bethany, as set forth in Resolution No. 1706 and published in accordance with the laws of the State of Oklahoma has been placed on the February election calendar; and

WHEREAS, the measure if passed would prohibit Tax Increment Financing as authorized by the Oklahoma Constitution at Article 10 Section 6C; and

WHEREAS, the measure if passed would prohibit the use of tax rebates to induce businesses to come to the City of Bethany; and

WHEREAS, the measure if passed prevents would prevent subsidies to any businesses or corporations to include non-profit corporations and municipal corporations; and

WHEREAS, the measure if passed may have unintended consequences that could impact, impede, or prevent agreements with public interest programs in which corporations participate are benefit from to include the Bethany Economic Development Authority's Bethan Improvement Grant; and.

WHEREAS, the measure if passed would reduce the City of Bethany's bargaining power to enter into agreements with businesses and corporations to promulgate economic and tax base growth in the public interest, and to compete with Oklahoma City in attracting businesses to our community.

NOW, THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED by the City Council of the City of Bethany, Oklahoma opposes the passage of the subsidy ballot item.