Tulsa Public Schools audit

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.