The legacy of laissez-faire supervision that former Brownsville Independent School District director of Transportation Jose Hector Chirinos left in his wake has come back to haunt the bus barn.
Not only did the forensic audit uncover gross abuse of overtime by the administration of the bus drivers, but a more recent audit has uncovered that hundreds of thousands of dollars in unnecessary spare parts were stockpiled over the past few years, a boon to vendors and totally uselss to the day-to-day operations of the department.
Add an entitlement attitude by bus drivers and their union – Choferes Unidos – and you have the makings of open revolt against the new Transportation Administration.This has become more and more evident as employees there get suspended or outright terminated for demanding what they had seen as a right and privilege by Chirinos while he was there.
In the latest incident, a bus driver got into an administrator's face and told him in no uncertain terms that the district would have to pay the drivers overtime whether the administrators wanted or not. The incident escalated to the point where the driver was poking his finger at the assistant Transportation administrator while a female driver screamed at him that the group around him wouldn't let him go until he acquiesced.
Before that, Choferes Unidos leader Petra Ramirez (La Doctora) was suspended recently with pay for organizing an impromptu demonstration to confront BISD Superintendent Carl Montoya during a pep rally for the beginning of school at Rivera High School.
In the case of the belligerent bus driver, he was terminated from his employment after he was written up for insubordination and for initiating physical contact with the supervisor.
But that wasn't all. After administrators asked around and looked up his work record, they discovered that he had been the subject of at least 17 previous complaints, including some by parents of students.
Chirinos was one of those administrators who got shuffled here and there after he wore out his welcome at one work site after another. First he was a principal at Porter High School. Then he got shunted off to Transportation, then to as an interim administrator at Veterans Memorial High School, then to administration at the Glass Palace on Price.
At his latest gigs he was commanding a six-figure salary without as much as a clear responsibility of duties. In time, he got the message and retired.
Now, after he got the bus drivers addicted to easy money in the form of unjustified overtime and the district seeks to clean up the mess he left behind, he has announced that he wants to be on the BISD board of trustee and is a candidate in November.
"While he was a principal at Porter he surrounded himself with a group of female assistants that everyone called his harem," recalled a Porter High School student parent. "Everywhere he went they were always with him."
The forensic audit performed by the district lists a laundry list of mismanagement areas under Chirinos.
Overtime Issue: Transportation Department Administrator Jose Hector Chirinos:
FINDINGS AND RECOMMENDATIONS:
In interview, Chirinos stated the overtime abuse was there within the Transportation Department when he took over in 2005. He indicated his efforts to curb the abuse were thwarted by the unions and the board. Chirinos blamed the lack of supervisory assistance yet he himself failed to take a hard line on the issue. Based on the interviews of the drivers and monitors, they took full advantage of the ineffectiveness and complacency displayed by then administrator Chirinos.
Not only did Chirinos conceal (and) fail to disclose, but also took measures, in the form of termination and demotion, in an effort to prevent employees within Transportation Department from 1) revealing the truth about overtime abuse; 2) furnishing information ; and 3) confronting the abusers. Starting with Viola Currier in 2006 and continuing to date with Terry Spellane, Chirinos subtly and effectively suppressed disclosure and evidence of abuse through firing and demotion.
First, Ms. Currier, with 19 years of experience in Transportation Department was terminated by Chirinos after she questioned employees about their riding the clock. Then, five years later, Ms. Spellane, an experienced accountant, was demoted and removed from payroll by Chirinos after she continued to identify abuse and waste taking place within Transportation.
Ms. Spellane estimated the loss due to the abuse at $600,000 a year. If conservatively only 70 percent were abusing the system by riding the clock one hour per day, the Forensic Audit Staff would put the loss at $420,000 a year, or roughly $2.5 million over the six years in which Chirinos was administrator.
It is highly recommended that strong administrative action with the possibility of termination be taken against Jose Hector Chirinos (and that BISD) hire professional business people with experience in running a transportation department...Of all the violators and abusers, the average number of years with the district was 17 years seniority.
0 comments:
Post a Comment