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| Highlights in her hair or a money shot from the Teachers Union? |
Cindy, You Ignorant Slut
Once the news was rather gentle then along came the Point Counter Point style interviews on the issues in the seventies, leading to an unforgettable SNL skit where Dan Ackroyd famously replied to his female opponent “Jane, you ignorant slut.” The idea that not only was she wrong, she was of low moral character for even taking the position to argue a point.
Since then the tag line has been used only for the most egregious, most imbecilic, most corrupt acts and we believe that State Auditor Cindy Byrd certainly deserves to be added to the list.
Yes, it is October, the month that charter schools have to use for enrollment numbers for the rest of the year. Every year since Epic Charter schools has existed there has been a well orchestrated attack upon Epic in or near October for the sole purpose of stopping the meteoric rise in enrollment as parents choose to remove their kids from the union ran public schools and the resulting indoctrination of liberal values. Every year the charges turn out to be baseless and the case is quietly dropped after the enrollment period is at an end.
Epic for its part accepts students past this enrollment date, choosing to pay for any new kid's education out of their profits, with the state providing zero funding for any student that enrolls after the enrollment period is up for the year. In January the clock resets and Epic begins to be paid for those students. Unlike the union ran public schools that can retain state and local money for up to three years after a student has left for a charter school or even has moved to another state.
The latest attack by Cindy Byrd called a few things out in particular.
- Mysterious enrollment, according to the auditors they cannot determine if Epic ws entitled to the state aid they received. This was due to Byrd's refusal to follow the contract between the state and Epic which laid out exactly how enrollment was counted.
- The profit motive, Epic advertises for students, the more students they enroll the more state aid they receive. Hmm, so Byrd is anti capitalistic now? One expects private businesses to be motivated by profit.
- The spending of $203,000 spent from an Epic account in 2016 to help start a California school and an additional $210,000 later on, none of which was board approved and all of which was paid back after the discovery. Except that the money came from Epic's PROFITS from providing services to the state and thus was private money, not public money.
- The fact that CFO Josh Brock was the CFO of both the school and the for profit company that runs Epic. And? Show us the statutes that says this is illegal.
- Exceeding the 5% cap on admin expenses which Epic had to repay. Caused by Byrd's refusal to follow the state contact that Epic had with the SDE that specifically outlined what admin costs were and what were educational services costs.
- The lack of board approval for two transactions, one for $6 million, another for $3.3 million which was a loan to another Epic entity. Which turned out to be completely legal and proper for this private company to transfer funds between their various schools as it was NO LONGER STATE MONEY!
Governor Stitt asked for a three year audit after previous attacks upon Epic. Cindy Byrd, AKA the ignorant slut for the purposes of this story, went back six years despite Epic being continually audited by the Department of Education since their beginning. Instead of determining if the tax money had been spent on education, the slut decided to delve into a critique of how Epic was set up initially by the state, using the slut's own opinion on how Oklahoma charter school law should be rather than determining if Epic had violated existing state law.
Epic Youth Services is the private corporation set up to manage the charter school. It is paid strictly by a formula set up under Oklahoma charter school laws and as the largest school districts in the state with 61,000 students that is going to be a large amount of money and all perfectly legal as their contract with the Education Department demands.
Advertising is a normal business expense, schools and colleges advertise, there is no state law against a school advertising used to recruit new teachers and staff or to attract new students. Epic pays teachers exceptionally well, far more than the union ran public schools, no doubt the teacher unions see the best teachers leave for more money and there goes the union dues...
As a percentage of their budget, you are looking at less than 2% spent on advertising.
The 134 page response put out by Epic picks apart the slut's teacher union pleasing “audit” point by point. One of the first casualties is the slut's claim that Epic was uncooperative despite the slut having full access to the school, their computers, and their staff. Much was made of tiny instances such as a one board member being a nurse and working on the Covid response and was slow to respond or an official being slow to answer emails in the time period that his wife was giving birth, or for a two week quarantine period after the guy had contracted Covid. The slut refused to send a list of questions in written form in that last situation.
And despite having a clear contract with the state of Oklahoma, the slut ignored that contract and how it detailed being paid and turned this “audit” into a political bitch fest about Epic following existing law. The one case where Epic was not forthcoming was when the slut demanded records that Oklahoma statutes and their contract with the state stated were not public records so they dug in their heels and asked a court to decide.
Basically if the slut is to be believed, any vendor doing business with the state of Oklahoma has to open up their private records on all of their businesses. I have done business with the state and like Epic I would have no problem delivering records associated with the contract, there is no way in hell the state is going on a fishing expedition into my records nor are they telling me what I can do with the money the state has paid for delivering products.
When you read through the Epic response you will find that Epic followed the State Department of Education, SDE, rules to the very letter and the slut had a problem with the state rules formulated under state law by the SDE. The slut complained that the exact costs incurred weren't proven by actual invoices. Well, when I supplied countertops to the state they had no right to know what I was paying for labor or material or for the amount of toilet paper used that week. What was important was the contract, was I paid according to the contract and was the exact product delivered. Nothing more is required by state law.
The slut stuck her nose into all sorts of things including the retirement payments that Epic made to the state teacher retirement program. There the slut was at odds with what the retirement program instructed Epic to consider salary, apparently bonuses that are not given out to all teachers in the same amount are not considered part of pay when determining retirement benefits. Epic provided emails from the teacher retirement system outlining what Epic was required to do and the slut decided to omit the emails from her final report and stick with the claim that Epic was doing something wrong on retirement payments.
The slut even complained that millions of dollars had been billed to several public school systems but not paid, despite reading the contract that didn't actually give a due date. The invoices had been sent but not followed up, which was corrected once it came to light. Imagine the slut being upset over a public school system being behind on paying it's bills. Heck, back in the 90's the state was notorious for not paying their bills on time, many vendors refused to do business with the state because of their credit history.
But one of the slut's charges stands out in pure ridiculousness, the claim that Epic's lease of two indoor spaces in malls for playgrounds conflicts with Article 10 Section 26 of the Oklahoma Constitution. Cindy, you ignorant slut, multi year contracts are NOT prohibited by the Constitution, all schools and all state departments sign such multi year contracts all the time.
And then there is the CBEW, an independent CPA firm that reviews school financial statements for the State Auditor and is endorsed by them on a regular basis. Epick is audited every year by CBEW and CBEW has always said that the private management company that runs Epic is not to include any information or financial statements because once the management fees are paid that money is no longer state taxpayer money but private money. Plus these CBEW audits were submitted to the State Auditor annually for the past eight years and the slut was responsible under state statute to ensuring that the audits were in order and that the law was being followed. Not a peep from the slut for eight years, not a single instance of a problem noticed by the State Auditor including the acceptance that what a private business does with their money is their business and not the state's business. Has the slut been derelict in her duties?
How can all these problems just now come to light unless she was looking the other way or unless the slut just pulled crap out of her ass and called it fact. Past that, both the actual school that sponsors Epic and the SDE have annual reviews and certifications including audits and financial statements done on Epic. Then there is the Community Strategies Board that is composed of various experts including Epic parents that is responsible for keeping an eye on Epic, they have never reported any deviations from Epic's state contract....
You can take half a day to read Epic's response to the State Auditor's political attacks upon Epic but save your eyes and time; Cindy Byrd hasn't a leg to stand on and frankly it is embarrassing to see her be such a whore for the teacher unions. Epic is beloved by its students and parents, it does the job of educating kids for about one third of what the union ran public schools cost, and not a penny of property tax is spent on Epic.
If Epic is guilty of anything it is that they are doing a better job for one third the cost of the old way of educating students. There will be no end to the prostitute politicians angling for teacher union donations and as soon as one loses its head another will pop up desperate for donations.
OCPAC agrees with the utter lack of integrity shown by Cindy Byrd and the State Audit of Epic and yet the slut is likely to not face much other scrutiny over her obvious hatchet job on a private company doing an excellent job educating students. But you can bet she has earned an army of liberal union members for her re election campaign or a nice cushy landing job once she terms out of office.
