With characteristic bombast and fluster, Brownsville Independent School District trustee Minerva Peña is doing her best impression of a bull running amok in a china shop.
Her recent acts have left her fellow trustees bewildered and not a bit upset at her antics.
Her behavior at the recent picking of a financial consultant is but one example.
BISD's Chief Financial Officer Ismael Garcia had recommended that the first pick for that lucrative position be awarded to a San Antonio company and placed it be fore the board at their last meeting.
When it time to cast the vote, three trustees voted to follow his recommendations, only to have Peña vacillate and say that she didn't feel she could vote and wanted to abstain because she didn't have "enough information."
When the board couldn't muster the majority needed to pick the consultant, Garcia suggested that they consider the second choice, Estrada and Hinojosa, the existing consultants.
To the rest of her fellow trustee's surprise, Peña raised her hand in support of Estrada and Hinojosa.
"You should have seen the stunned look in the other trustees' faces when Peña voted," said a a BISD administrator. "They asked her how she could say she didn't have enough information to vote for the CFO's first pick and then voted for Estrade and Hinojosa just a short moment later."
You remember that bunch. In BISD's forensic audit, it was discovered they were primarily responsible for convincing the trustees and the admnistration to issue $25.9 million in Qualified School Construction Bonds (QSCB) under the federal Instructional Facilities Allotment (IFA)in 2010 .
Board members and even former Superintendent Brett Springston were told at the time that the state would consider the entire debt service with federal tax credits which would make the bond "free money."
The board authorized the issuance Dec. 7, 2010...and the bonds were sold Dec. 22. A little over two weeks later, on Jan. 6, 2011, Estrada Hinojosa & Company were contacted by the Texas Education Agency and they were told the debt service schedules submitted with the four applications were incorrect because they did not deduct the federal subsidy from the debt service requirement on the bonds.
So, instead of a minimal payment, or none at all as they had been promised, the board members were told that the district's local share will be approximately $507,068 a year which over the 18-year term of the bonds will cost the district $9,127,216 to retire.
The net profit for the "consultants" for that slight-of-hand? Close to $3.5 million. So knowing that, why did Peña suddenly change her mind on the selection of consultants for the 2012-2013 school year?
The suspicion among district observers is that Peña – now seeking reelection – thought the consultants might not forget her largess when they make their political donations for the election in November.
You remember that bunch. In BISD's forensic audit, it was discovered they were primarily responsible for convincing the trustees and the admnistration to issue $25.9 million in Qualified School Construction Bonds (QSCB) under the federal Instructional Facilities Allotment (IFA)in 2010 .
Board members and even former Superintendent Brett Springston were told at the time that the state would consider the entire debt service with federal tax credits which would make the bond "free money."
The board authorized the issuance Dec. 7, 2010...and the bonds were sold Dec. 22. A little over two weeks later, on Jan. 6, 2011, Estrada Hinojosa & Company were contacted by the Texas Education Agency and they were told the debt service schedules submitted with the four applications were incorrect because they did not deduct the federal subsidy from the debt service requirement on the bonds.
So, instead of a minimal payment, or none at all as they had been promised, the board members were told that the district's local share will be approximately $507,068 a year which over the 18-year term of the bonds will cost the district $9,127,216 to retire.
The net profit for the "consultants" for that slight-of-hand? Close to $3.5 million. So knowing that, why did Peña suddenly change her mind on the selection of consultants for the 2012-2013 school year?
The suspicion among district observers is that Peña – now seeking reelection – thought the consultants might not forget her largess when they make their political donations for the election in November.
"It smelled as if she was padding her nest for a contribution with that vote," said a member of the public who attended the meeting. "That really reeked."
Still another act by the flighty trustee was the attendance of the local bus driver' union at a pep rally held for returning students.
According to union sources, Peña suggested that they confront BISD superintendent Carl Montoya at Sam's Stadium when he appeared for that event. Now, if you have followed BISD tradition, the pep rally for students, parents, BISD teachers and staff and the trustees is not a forum for labor disputes.
Yet, some driver have said that intrepid Peña advised them to talk to Montoya about their demands in front of the crowd assembled to cheer in the new school year.
"She is flighty at best and possibly nuts at worse," said a BISD administrator. "Sometimes you want to think that she doesn't know what she's doing, but at other times you wonder whether she was also looking for the drivers' political support by suggesting they confront the super with their demands at the rally."
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