November 19, 2004

ESUHSD trustee re-elected to third term

Craig Mann clears his name in district ‘procurement card’ expense investigation

By Sheila Sanchez
Staff Writer

East Side Union High School District trustee and Evergreen resident Craig Mann, embroiled with the city in a wrongful employment termination claim, said this week he feels vindicated by his Nov. 2 election victory.

Like District 7 San Jose City Councilman Terry Gregory, who’s being investigated for alleged unethical behavior and possible illegal activities while Mann worked as his chief of staff, Mann was also the subject of an investigation of his use of the so-called “procurement” card issued by the district.

The cards are not revolving accounts and don’t build balances since they’re paid off after the 30-day cycle. Mann said during a five-plus-year period, he chalked up approximately $30,000 worth of expenses on behalf of the district.

The expenses were associated with attending four annual educational conferences: California School Boards Association (CSBA), National School Boards Association, National Alliance of Black School Educators and CSBA Legislative Conference each year.

He said conference attendance by the 50,000 plus board members throughout the state and hundreds of thousands across the nation is a normal and customary extension of their roles.

“I was either a student, learning about new initiatives that I could bring back to the East Side to benefit our students, or a presenter on behalf of East Side at these conferences,” he said.

One initiative he learned about while attending these events was the need for an independent audit function within school districts. He presented the idea to the board, which approved it. The district has had several audits since, one discovering $3 million in waste, fraud and abuse—money that has now been redirected to better use, he said.

As for the expenditures, Mann said after taking a second look at them, he concluded that approximately $1,000 required reimbursement to the district due to their “gray area” nature, an amount he reimbursed the district last year in full. “I never charged the district for personal expenses, never,” he stressed.

Mann is the only board member to date that has exhaustively gone through 100 percent of his expense records accumulated during his tenure to insure the accuracy and legitimacy of the expenses.

“I was so confident about the accuracy and the legitimacy of my expenses, that I had the district compile, seal and deliver 100 percent of my expense profile to the Santa Clara County District Attorney’s Office on Nov 12, 2003. To this date they have found no wrongdoing,” he said. “I’ve led by example, by doing the forensic work of examining my records, reimbursing the district for the mistakes I made and by submitting my records to an outside agency for review.”

Mann said the district had poor internal processing of the expense reports themselves. Unlike personal credit cards, board members never received the statements at home for their procurement card usage. They were at the mercy of the district office to advise them that a statement had landed so that they could initiate the expense reporting process.

The board has since banned the use of the cards and has passed new policies severely tightening the use for the remaining cardholders.

Disgruntled employees attack Mann

A week before Election Day, a negative political hit piece attacked Mann on his use of the procurement card, but an editorial in the San Jose Mercury News endorsed his candidacy and put the matter of his expenses to rest.

“They (Mercury News editorial board) concluded that most of my expenditures were legitimate and acknowledged that I made the district whole on that which was not,” Mann said.

On being re-elected, he thanked God for his triumph. He said the voters’ support was a reaffirmation that his board work is valued. He and district Superintendent Esperanza Zendejas have been the target of a hate campaign for more than a year, he noted, by what he called a “very well-organized group of disgruntled employees.”

Ironically, Mann said, these same employees literally wasted $50,000 of hard-earned union dues to defeat him so they could fire Zendejas, but only invested a measly $5,000 into Measure K, which would have spared the district from having to make the draconian cuts it will have to make in the 2005-06 school year—cuts that will adversely affect their jobs.

However, on Nov. 2, Mann said district constituents spoke and sent a strong sign of support of the educational reform and fiscal accountability agenda led by the board of trustees and administered by Zendejas. Mann called her an “excellent and reform-minded superintendent.”

“My reelection is an affirmation that we are on the right course, one that will enable each and every student to achieve high degrees of academic, personal and social success,” he said.

Measure K loss to impact employees
Since the parcel tax failed, the board and superintendent, after a community engagement process, will have to make budget cuts of more than $18 million in the upcoming school budget, which must be adopted no later than June 30.

He said since 91 percent of the district’s budget is personnel-related, it unfortunately means the board will have to let many fine employees go.

Mann said this current budget year, 2004-05, the district saved librarians, school psychologists and career advisors.

“These fine employees understood that if the parcel tax failed there were no guarantees that we could save their jobs or those of others from the expected 2005-06 budget ax,” he noted.

In addition, Mann said the district has contract negotiations pending with the East Side Teachers Union as its three-year contract expires in 2005.

He said the current bargaining agreement between the district and teachers is not only fiscally irresponsible and unaffordable but is contrary to the best interests of student achievement.

He described the bargaining agreement as a “silver saddle” on a scrawny horse, with the scrawny horse being the poor fiscal condition and educational challenges of the district.

Moving forward, Mann said, contract negotiations must ask questions about the affordability of continuing to provide health benefits without employee co-pays; maintaining cost of living adjustment (COLA) formulas that provide a bigger COLA than the state passes on to the district and the preservation of restrictive class-size language that won’t allow district management to best optimize finite resources.

“We have 1,215 mostly excellent teachers in our district, and they deserve the absolute best we can afford, but only what we can absolutely afford,” Mann said.

The 44-year-old Mann, who has been a trustee for six years, said his overarching goal is to continue the reform agenda that will enable every student to achieve high degrees of academic, personal and social success.

Juanita Ramirez, president of the board of trustees, was not re-elected and Lan Nguyen, 36, a Vietnamese immigrant who graduated from Andrew Hill High School, will replace her. Nguyen had the strong support of the East Side Teachers Association and the California School Employees Association.

Mann said he’s looking forward to working with Nguyen and he’s confident that he will do a fine job as long as he remains an independent voice focused on what is best for students. “An effective board member is one who places student interests first and foremost above all others,” he said.