The GUSD Board met on Tuesday to discuss Trent's request for retirement, indemnification of possible criminal charges, and to recind 44 days of vacation pay to John Marquez.Shown here: Board President,Cayci Vuksanovich, Members,Anna Harmon & Dale Fletcher. Photo by: LeeAnn Powers

This week, Dr. Timothy Trent  submitted his request for early retirement to the Globe School Board, after spending over a year on home assignment while an audit of financial, procurement and HR records was conducted by Education Review Group.

The results of the audit were posted on local radio station, gila101.9 in March, (and again here – see below).  During the year long process, the School Board studiously refused to discuss the audit or any findings with the public.

The audit was completed in March and it appears that the Board was scheduled to present the findings in a public forum earlier this month when the meeting was canceled at the last minute.

When faced with the option of  reviewing all charges using a mediator or taking early retirement, Trent and his attorney opted to go for early retirement which negated the public airing of charges.

While this closes one chapter of the saga, it does not wipe the slate clean. There is the on going investigation by the state’s attorney general and the lawsuit which has been filed by the couple against the School Board and individual members. All of this serves to keep the results of the audit on the table and promises to air additional grievances on both sides of the table as the legal machinations gear up for yet another chapter.

In Tuesday’s meeting, Trent also requested that the Board pay for his defense in the AG’s investigation, which they roundly denied. It is one thing to indemnify an employee for mistakes or mis-steps they make while discharging their duties, and quite another to indemnify criminal actions. The AGs office does not investigate mis-steps.

The degree to which this whole case has embroiled the parties in legal proceedings, seems excessive when compared to other brouhaha’s regarding dis-enfranchised Superintendents and their School Boards. Take the recent case of a Utah school district where … two of three candidates for Superintendent have backgrounds in which they were placed on leave. One candidate left his former position before his contract expired – “…forgoing any salary or benefits for the remainder of his contract in exchange for the Boards agreement not to fire him and to take a neutral position in discussing his job performance.” Utah’s search for Superintendents.

In that same case, State auditors found “improper and potentially fraudulent payments” totaling more than $88,000 to his buddy, the business manager.  The business manager has reimbursed the district for $55,522 of that amount. No criminal charges were filed. This Superintendent is re-applying to the Utah Board for a position and says his former performance should not impact the Boards decision.

The local case involving Timothy Trent and the Globe School Board involves bigger “improprieties.”

Just consider this from the audit:

An excerpt from the 47 page procurement report “… revealed millions of dollars spent on contractual services for technology services and equipment. Of the services, much of it was illegally paid from the improper accounts. Change orders authorizing extra payments were signed by Dr. Trent, and documentation on several of the agreements were not able to be found. In one instance, the auditors could not find in the school board minutes any authorization for technology services in the amount of $56,910. The auditors suggested in the report that “due to the amount of money GUSD spent and due to violations of procurement and lack of documentation… the Reviewers strongly recommend that an investigative unit of the Auditor General’s office or the Attorney General’s office investigate these expenditures.”

The local case also has more than it’s share of lawsuits flying around. The most recent to be filed is by Trent and Flores against the District and each Board Member.

So, instead of walking away with the salary he has been paid for the last year to be on home assignment  ($100K plus), Trent and local-county-attorney, legal-eagle wife (Daisy Flores), have deemed it necessary to sue the local school District for the audacity of investigating these things and causing ‘them’ distress. Trent’s new job appears to be as victim, and he and Flores, are asking the School District to pay out $2million in damages, including reimbursing the power-couple for a $9000 European vacation which they say was ruined when they discovered the bad news about the home assignment.

Ahh the wheels of justice – how they turn.

Let us know what you think!

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For those who want to track the issue, we have provided a time line of events with corresponding documentation.

June 2009: School Board votes in special session to re-assign Dr. Timothy Trent and Supervisor of Facilities, John Marquez to home while an independent audit is performed. Initially thought to be a three month process, the audit took nearly a year during which both men continued to receive their reg. salaries, but were precluded from coming on District grounds.

Nov 2009: Daisy and Trent file a letter of Notice of Intent.   2010_01_07_Trent Complaint

Jan 2010: A class action lawsuit is filed by teachers and administrators alleging that Trent “…engaged in a campaign of harassment, fear and intimidation…”Globe_20091119145048

March 2010: The 90-page Audit report is released to the press. It covers Finance, Procurement and Human Resources. See below:

GUSD Audit Review_Table of Contents

GUSD Audit Review_Finance

GUSD Audit Review_Procurement

GUSD Audt Review_Human Resources Part 1

GUSD Audt Review_Human Resources Part 2

GUSD Audit Review_Human Resources Part 3

GUSD Audit Review_Human Resources Part 4

GUSD Audit Review-Human Resources Part 5

June 28th, 2010 – In a special session, the Globe School Board accepts Dr. Trent’s retirement request.

However, they  deny his request to pay for his defense in the on-going investigation by the State’s Attorney Generals’ office and and to indemnify him against possible charges stemming from this investigation.

A contract to develop a DVD intended to promote the Globe School District was given to Tom Leach, Eyes of a Child, who appears to have sub’d it out to a highschool student and was of such poor quality, the District never used it. This may have just been written up as a lesson in what not to do – had it not been for the fact that Leach was paid $8,450 for the job…and after such a dismal result, still received contracts for his services which amounted to nearly $300,000 over 3 years.

This is just one of many findings by an independent audit review(see below), recently released, involving Globe’s Superintendent of Schools, Timothy Trent and John Marquez, Supervisor of Facilities. Both men had been placed on home assignment last June and not allowed on the GUSD campus, as the School Board brought in independent auditors to look into financial, procurement and human resource records for the period of July 2006 through June 2009.

As you may recall, Timothy Trent was hired as the Superintendent of Globe Unified School District in 2003, and in 2005 married Daisy Flores the Gila County County Attorney. The marriage created a powerful force. One which reportedly contributed to a reticence by those involved to come forward earlier. Flores has adamantly denied any undue influence. It seems though, some still insist that her position as both wife and County Attorney played into their decision not to speak up.

The entire Audit Report may be found on

Bill Taylor’s website: gila101.9.

Some of the summary statements and recommendations found in the report include:

(1) A recommendation, “that because of improprieties of procurement and other possible violations of ARS this should be sent to the Auditor General office and Attorney Generals’ office for investigative review.

(2) A summary statement pertaining to Human Resources, which says, ” Based on conversations with GUSD personnel, the Human Resource Director and documents provided by the District we have determined that an allegedly evasive, widespread and systematic form of harassment and the subsequent creation of a hostile work environment has been prevalent within the GUSD over the past several years.

NOTE: Arizona SilverBelt. reported recently that a class action lawsuit involving several teachers and administrators was filed in Gila County Court in September against Timothy Trent and Daisy Flores.

(3) As a result of Dr. Trent appointing himself as GUSD Business Manager (Chief Financial Officer) on September 24, 2008 and October 8, 2008… and assuming responsibilities for cash management and completion reports…has led to the degrading of the entire GUSD Human Resource, Procurement and Financial Systems.

Without a highly competent business manager who will adhere to USFR and other legal and administrative rules and regulations the District, in our opinion, has either lost or abused many hundred’s of thousands of dollars over a short period of time.

Just recently, Flores’ office sent out a press release (posted on gila101.9) detailing, what they say are corrections to one of the allegations in the Audit: (1) That after her husband Trent requested an early voter list of individuals who voted in the May 2007 override and was denied access by Linda Haught-Ortega, Bryan Chambers and Rob Miller with the County Attorney’s office came to argue the issue in support of release, and when this didn’t result in a release of documents, that she had a visit by Flores herself who concurred with Ortega that the statute precluded the use to which Trent had stated. The press statement issued by Bryan Chambers, argues that Ortega came to him for advice on the matter. Not the other way around. And noted that Rob Miller was not actually on the County Attorney’s payroll at that time (it would be another 2.5 months before he was actually put on the payroll), but it does not deny that Trent requested the documents, nor does it broach the subject of the intent of such a request.

Chamber states that even after being denied access, Trent visited his office to “re-urge” his request. The Audit goes on to say that they were told by the Gila County Recorder she had received calls from teachers that worked for the District asking “if Dr. Trent could find out how they voted?” She said they called her office “in fear that Dr. Trent could tell how they voted.” Others at the District office voiced the same concern to our consultants.

Perhaps, in addition to counseling the County Recorder on her right to withhold records, Flores might also have counseled her husband on the efficacy of his request in the first place.

The Audit goes on to outline other connections with the County Attorney’s office, backed up by the recent press release :

Rob Thompson, who you’ll recall from the latest press release by the County Attorney’s office, worked 19 hours as a part time Deputy Gila County Attorney from August of ’07 to February of ’08, and then turned up at Globe Unified School District as the Assistant Principal at the High School with a salary of $67,000 although he did not hold an Arizona Administrative Certificate. Miller went on to actually received a total of $129,431.99 during one and a half year period – mostly from consulting to the District.

When Liz Atilano informed Dr. Trent that Rob Thompson did not hold an administrator certificate, Trent told her to just put his position down as Dean of Students.

Another favorite son of both the CA’s office and the District, appears to have been Timothy Leach who operated under his own name, and his business known as “From the Eyes of  a Child” and a business known as ” Through the Eyes of a Child.” Leach had originally been an employee of the District in ’05, but resigned in October of ’05 and reappeared as an independent contractor in January of ’06. Leach was paid a total of $293,357.07 by the District over 3 years. He also worked for the County Attorney’s office according to the Board of Supervisor’s minutes.

During his stint at GUSD, he was paid $8,450 to produce a DVD which Leach said said he was well qualified to produce, having done so for another client. However, it seems he passed the work off, as he confirms in the audit, the DVD was “100% done by a high school senior” and despite such a large investment by the District, not one copy was ever published or put on the website. Nor was it easy to find any copies. The reviewers did finally track down one copy and their report states ” the poor quality of the DVD would indicate it was not used.”

Leach won the contract to do this DVD in a bid process which included a bid by now acting CPA Dean, Tamara Gilinski who says she has only bid on one contract with the District (an AIMS contract), so how her name and bid appeared on the DVD ( TamaraGalinskiDVD ) is….well, a mystery at this point. (Her name shows up as a bidder on other Leach contracts, alas to no avail. Leach goes on to win each contract, even after he turns in one bid past the 5pm cut off.)

In another PO for $28,600, Dr. Trent directed a GUSD employee to advertise the RFP in the Payson paper – not one of general circulation in the area. The published dates of the RFP were within 5 days of each other, failing to meet the minimum standard of 14 days to allow bidders sufficient time to participate. Low and Behold, there was only one proposal for this contract, that being From the Eyes of a Child and the Board approved RFP 29-23-13 with a cap of $75,000. Tom Leach was paid 75,000 under this RFP “without any paramenters. Invoices did not reflect days or hours worked.”

Jason Williams, Democratic candidate running for State School Superintendent was in Globe Wednesday night to speak to a gathering of concerned parents and citizens who came to hear his vision for fixing the State's Education system. Tom Horn, current Superintendent is stepping down in 2010 after an 8 year tenure

Jason Williams, a Democrat running for State Superintendent of Schools was in Globe last night to talk to a group of concerned citizens and parents about his vision for the State’s educational woes.

Williams, who ran against Tom Horn in 2006, wants to shift the emphasis back onto public schools and do more to engage kids and address the issues in the public sector to raise the bar. Under the guidance of Tom Horn who has held the seat since 2002, the State greatly increased Charter schools (now at 453) and in a recent report put out by Stanford University the results  out from Charter schools appear disappointing.

“While the report recognized a robust national demand for more charter schools from parents and
local communities, it found that 17 percent of charter schools reported academic gains that were
significantly better than traditional public schools, while 37 percent of charter schools showed
gains that were worse than their traditional public school counterparts, with 46 percent of charter
schools demonstrating no significant difference”

Arizona has the dubious honor of being one of the worst states in the country when it comes to education. (see: Smartest State) To overlook the impact this has when trying to attract business and industry to fuel our economy is to miss the mark entirely. It is not enough to reduce business taxes. If business owners look at the schools here in Arizona and decide neither they, nor their employees, want their kids going to them , and if industry can’t find enough qualified, educated workforce to do the job, then Arizona will continue to struggle to have jobs and economic prosperity. It is critical to our livelihood- not to mention just caring about kids futures- that the State find a way to be better than Dead Last in this area.

Williams thinks he has a few ideas on how to get there.

He recently responded to Governor Jan Brewer’s address:

Phoenix, Ariz. – Jason Williams, Democratic Candidate for State Superintendent of Public Instruction, released the following statement in response to Governor Jan Brewer’s State of the State address Monday:

“This week, many Arizonans listened to Governor Jan Brewer’s State of the State speech, anticipating hearing how she was going to move the state forward.  Instead, we were treated to a campaign speech, demonstrating yet again the lack of true leadership at the Capitol.  As an educator, I listened intently for substantive ideas on how to reverse Arizona’s dropout rate, increase early literacy, and have real accountability for our public schools.  I am going to be honest.  I was surprised by what I heard.

“I am sure that many of you were also surprised, perhaps by the contradiction of calling for increased accountability from the public schools while simultaneously dumbing-down our educational accountability system.  I was surprised for a different reason, though.  Governor Brewer actually proposed two things with which I not only agree, but that I campaigned on in 2006:  ending promotion for students who are unable to read at a gateway year and having a comprehensive data system that allows all Arizonans to access information on how schools are doing.

“But we are no longer in 2006, and those ideas are no longer new suggestions.  They have instead become generally understood best practices in education.  But rather than implementing them while she has been in office or while her party has had power, the Republican leadership is still just talking about them.  It is time for true leadership.  It is time for the best practices to be implemented in Arizona’s public schools.

“We are indeed in a tremendous fiscal crisis, and I fully understand the challenges that are associated with trying to make ends meet.  However, as a state, we have to face the reality that we either invest in our students now or we will have to make an even greater payment down the road in terms of dropouts, prisoners, and an underprepared workforce.  Education has always been the foundation for a strong society.  I thank Governor Brewer for recognizing some changes that must be made to make Arizona’s schools an example of excellence.  But I am tired of hearing things suggested and never enacted.  We need real educational leadership and real accountability.  I look forward to bringing those values to the public school system as the next Superintendent of Public Instruction.”

# # #

To learn more about Jason Williams, visit www.WilliamsForArizona.com

By: Linda Gross

The recent complaint letter by Dr. Timothy Trent directed at GUSD’s School Board is accusing them of, among other things damaging an otherwise exemplary reputation when they removed him to home rule to conduct an audit into both financial and personnel matters. The results of the audit being conducted by the Board  are due out this month, but a recent 90-day letter to the District from the State Auditor General seems to point out several deficiencies in managing the District’s money as well as tracking student attendance. It was was simply the latest in a series of letters from the State identifying “deficiencies” – all under the watch of Superintendent T. Trent. In addition, it might be pointed out that he was sued by a teacher while he was a Principle at Kyrene Elementary before coming to Globe (as reported by the East Valley Tribune) …and for some of the same kinds of actions he is currently accused of in the class action suit filed recently in Gila County.  It seems his “exemplary” career may have just a few smudges.

Still, the complaint- respectfully submitted on Trent’s behalf says, “…as a result of the District’s actions, Dr. Trent and Ms. Flores would be willing to settle this mater for a total of $2,409,642.50. ” There is the usual compensatory damages, attorney fees etc in this complaint….as well as asking for the $9000 spent by the couple on their European vacation. Ahhh… the wheels of justice.

2010_01_07_Trent Complaint

The recent letter from the State Auditor General’s office dated Dec 15th refers to “significant deficiencies in internal controls that indicate the District has not complied with USFR (Uniform System of Financial Records) for the school year ending June 2008.  GlobeUSD_12-09(2)

The School Board consisting of Jacque Cline Griffin,Frankie Dalmolin, Cayci Vucksanovich, Anna Harmon and Dale Fletcher discuss the presentation by Nelson *The State has given the District 90 days (counting down from Dec 15th...so we're now at about 60 days) to correct the issues before an on-site visit by State officials.

In the letter, the State outlines multiple issues with procurement and tracking student attendance. Nelson explained that in 2004 the District also received a 90-day letter outlining similar problems and that those problems were addressed with a “bandaid”. Additional letters from the State which cited problems with improperly tracking assets, ordering goods and services without purchase orders, and mis-reporting student attendance have further been addressed with stop-gap measures which failed to be internalized by the overall District.

“The time for band-aide solutions is over,” says Nelson. If the District doesn’t identify, institute and carry out significant changes in its purchasing and personnel record-keeping they will be flirting with the very real possibility of being taken over by the State.

It appears the District has been over inflating attendance figures for some time. That means they have received more money from the State than was due to the District. “Someone is going to want some money back.” says Nelson.

Dr. Ron Nelson, Chief Administrative Officer for GUSD, addresses the Board on Wednesday night regarding the most recent 90-Day letter from the State Auditor General. It pertains to the school year ending June 2008, and cites deficiencies in both procurement and personnel records.

Nelson spent a a good deal of time at the podium answering questions by the Board and talking about examples. IE: If you are going on a trip, you can’t just run in and pull $800 from the revolving fund. When we send teachers and administrators on trips we will know in advance what the rooms and conference costs will be. We will beable to send a check with them and they can pay for it when they check in.”

Board President, Cayci Vuksanovich acknowledged the problems which Nelson identified and said “…other schools have managed to work with these guidelines successfully. So there is no reason why we shouldn’t beable to as well.”

*

The current lawsuit involves both former and current employees of GUSD and accuses Trent of , among other things,

1:Having a “policy strictly forbidding GUSD employees to speak with GUSD Board members about issues related to their employment or GUSD’s business.”

2: Keeping a list of  people he did not like, which he shared with Kinnard, and targeted them for harassment, mistreatment, forced resignations, or humiliation.

It goes on to state, “Trent’s actions were outwardly aggravated, outrageous, malicious, or fraudulent and guided by an evil mind.

Globe_20091119145048 Class Action Suit/ Details