Any hopes that the public was going to be in a forgiving mood about Houston ISD’s failure to get board approval before it agreed to $870 million in purchase agreements were pretty much dashed at Thursday night’s HISD board meeting.
What Superintendent Mike Miles has called a “good faith error,” public speakers called appalling. Earlier in the week he said no one had been fired or disciplined as a result of the massive mistake — carried out over 16 months before anyone caught it. This prompted critics to ask why the Texas Education Agency wasn’t investigating the district’s business operations. And, as has become usual, several called for Miles to be fired.
Miles has said that the staffers involved in reviewing these so-called purchasing cooperatives (where businesses work together to buy in bulk and lower costs) thought those kind of agreements didn’t have to get board approval.
Many speakers Thursday also assailed the members of the appointed Board of Managers for not insisting on an investigation instead of — as they put it — just going along with whatever Miles says. Historically for HISD and other school districts, if there’s financial malfeasance going on it involves the purchasing department As one speaker pointed out, the Audit Committee has not met since early November. And she wondered how the audit of HISD operations gave the district a clean bill of health when for the past 16 months it hasn’t followed the proper procedure in this area of purchasing.
After an extended executive session, the board reconvened to announce added measures they plan to take about purchasing oversight. Among them: a full audit of the procurement process to begin immediately to be done by the Audit Committee, quarterly follow-ups by the Audit Committee, and that the administration will require additional legal review of the procurement process, according to Board President Audrey Momanaee.
In a 7-1-1- vote (Rolando Martinez voted no and Cassandra Auzenne Bandy abstained) the board voted to approve what the administration had already done.
In another unpopular move, one that ended up with audience member Sarah Terrell being ousted from the building and taken to jail in handcuffs when she objected loudly to the board unanimously voting to sell a number of properties:
Brookline Facility, Chatham Facility, East Area Office, Fairchild Facility, Fonwood Facility, Grimes Facility, Harper Facility, Haviland Acreage, Kirby & Orem Acreage, North Forest Acreage, North Forest Mesa Strip, Rhoads Facility, Ryon Facility, South Area Office, Southbank Acreage, Terrell Facility and Tidwell Acreage.
When Terrell refused to leave she was handcuffed, dragged from her front row seat and arrested for trespassing. Early Friday, she remained in the city of Houston jail after HISD pressed charges.
Topping it all off, despite pleas from the audience not to do so, the board elected Ric Campo as the new board president.  Momanaee will become vice president and Angela Lemond Flowers will remain as secretary. Campo, who has made public comments deriding the length of school board meetings, is not viewed as particularly tolerant of criticism of how the Board of Managers and its superintendent are operating.
Several speakers brought up the U.S. Department of Justice lawsuit filed earlier this month against Ric Campo’s company, Camden Properties, for alleged price fixing. Camden and large scale landlords in the country are accused of using rent algorithms to reduce competition and raise prices and profits as a result.
Michele Williams an HISD teacher whom the district tried unsuccessfully to fire earlier in the school year. cited a number of actions Miles has taken that she believes violate the Texas Education Code including and in addition to the $870 million mistake.
An elected board, she said, would have found Miles in breech of his contract. Another speaker asked the board “please do not sweep this under the rug.”
Speaker Ann Eagleton addressed the board directly: “Trust is earned not given. Clearly this debacle is big enough that there needs to be a consequence. If your kid crashes the station wagon, you don’t replace it with a Ferrari,” she said in reference to the amount of spending power the board is considering giving Miles.
“At best this is gross incompetence, at worst it’s chicanery. Until you’ve fully sorted that out, and published a report on the website from an independent auditor showing this was a good faith mistake, roll back the spending authority. Otherwise you are abdicating the stewardship responsibilities that you have. It is your job; you are in charge of the purse strings. Take charge. Now.”
“I find it so funny that you wanted us to give you $4.4 billion, tax dollars, and you can’t even account for 870 million bucks.” said Jessica Dugan.
“You are being told to sweep potential fraud under the rug,” said Sarah Terrell (earlier in the meeting). “This was circumventing policy. This was not skipping a step. Emphasizing budget compliance, Miles insists that you have no responsibility for protecting us from waste and fraud. He tells you to reward his failure with even less oversight and you know this is wrong.
“This is how you get Enron. Group think sets in if people lose their critical, ethical perspective.”
Community activist Ruth Kravetz told the board: “How did the $870 million in unapproved spending go unchecked for 16 months?. Why did this come to light publicly after the bond election and right after HISD got its clean audit opinion? Where were the internal controls?
“This error persisted so long, that it’s clear there were no backup controls. You should share publicly how and why everything has failed. Your first step is to publicly stop calling it an oversight or saying that there was no mal-intent.”
This article appears in Jan 1 – Dec 31, 2025.
