In a recent investigation, the Austin American-Stateman revealed that Austin City Council member Ryan Alter has been inappropriately, and potentially illegally, transferring thousands of taxpayer dollars to advocacy organizations and other non-profits.
“Organizations that have received taxpayer-funded donations from Alter’s office include nonprofits like Liberal Austin Democrats and Hispanic Advocates Business Leaders of Austin, or HABLA,” the Statesman’s Alex Driggars reported. The story cites dozens of other questionable expenses by Austin council members for pet projects, high-priced consultants, and junkets paid for by taxpayers.
The negative response from the public and the Stateman’s willingness to investigate this misuse of public funds is encouraging, even if it only adds up to a few thousand dollars.
Perhaps now it is time for taxpayers and the media to turn their attention to a similar scheme happening all over the state that is raiding our public education system not of thousands of dollars but of tens of billions of dollars.
School districts in Texas have been funding political non-profits, advocacy organizations, and even politicians with billions in tax dollars for decades. What they have figured out – which Councilman Alter did not and what got him caught – is that they must first pass the money through friendly vendors, consultants, and lobbyists who then make the contributions to the non-profits.
These organizations then turn around and fund the politicians and political action committees that advocate for positions the schools support, such as boosting state funding, opposing school choice, eliminating accountability measures, and passing billion-dollar bonds.
For example, construction, architectural, and consulting firms are some of the largest recipients of ISD dollars in the state. Companies like VLK, Huckabee and Associates, Walsh Gallegos, Parkhill, PBK, Corgan, Joeris, Bartlett Cocke, and dozens more, serve as “preferred vendors” for ISD projects, especially the ones that are funded by voter-approved bonds.
These vendors, of course, go out of their way to help the districts pass the bonds.
The contributors for any bond campaign, such as “Friends of Comal Public Schools,” “Vote Yes for LHISD Kids,” “Vote for Willis Kids,” “Vote for Sherman ISD,” include a list of companies that sound like a subcontractor’s Rolodex – most with names ending in “construction, “architects,” “partners,” “consulting,” and “associates.”
The vendor-funded campaigns pay for the push polls, cherry-picked presentations, and slick, often misleading advertisements to support the bond. One common deceptive tactic is to conflate raising taxes with raising tax rates. The ads will claim in large letters that the bond will not result in a tax rate increase, even though it will increase the overall tax burden due to rising appraisals and other factors.
There is rarely, if ever, any real debate over the need for the bond, the design of the project, the sticker price, or any legitimate pushback that might defend taxpayers’ interest. As a result, the vast majority of bonds pass in Texas. Today, taxpayers owe a staggering $202 billion in just school bonds.
Using publicly available data, there are thousands of examples demonstrating how spending as little as $100 in support of a bond campaign can reap massive returns for these companies within a year or two:
- In Prosper ISD (2022), for every $100 Huckabee & Associates gave to the bond campaign, they received $366,500 in contracts.
- In Midland ISD, Parkhill Smith & Cooper netted $1,149,200 per $100 donated.
- In Northside ISD, Casias Construction took home $1,310,500 per $100.
- Joeris Group Contractors received $1,509,400, while F.A. Nunnelly Contractors topped the list at $1,562,400 per $100 dollar given.
The companies that receive massive contracts from school districts are also large sponsors to organizations with charitable sounding names like Pastors for Texas Children and Friends of Texas Public Schools. But these organizations are merely a front for political advocacy on behalf of the school districts using funds passed through the preferred vendors.
To use one example, Pastors for Texas Children lists VLK and Walsh Gallegos as corporate sponsors, thanking them “as the #txed advocacy community girds up for #2020Election & 87th #txlege.” The group also thanks Huckabee and Associates as a donor “whose investments provide our structural funding.”
Pastors for Texas Children will then partner with candidates for office, such as state representative Gina Hinajosa who is running for governor against Gov. Gregg Abbott, as well as lobby the state legislature for policies schools support.
In another brazen example, Scott Milder is a Principal at VLK Architects, one of Texas’ largest beneficiaries of school district tax dollars. He founded Friends of Texas Public Schools which lists VLK as a $10,000 Diamond Corporate Sponsor, which means he’s using his own company to pass ISD dollars into the advocacy organization he founded.
These examples barely scratch the surface of the corrupt, wasteful, and inappropriate use of our tax dollars meant to improve education. According to the most recent data, roughly $36 billion – with a B – is spent by school districts on contractors, consultants, and lobbyists. They’re all part of a machine – nay, a cartel – that is denying taxpayers their prosperity and robbing our children of their future.
Councilman Alter was rightly chastised for inappropriately sending a few thousand dollars to outside organizations. Meanwhile, an entire ecosystem exists to launder billions of dollars out of our school system and into the pockets of politicians, political action committees, and advocacy non-profits. It’s time put an end to it.
