WKNO TRANSCRIPT of interview with Mike Carpenter, principal of Carpenter Civic Strategies.
CHRISTOPHER BLANK (Host): Tennessee officials did not hold back yesterday as they released just some of the results of a forensic audit of the Memphis-Shelby County Schools district. Here's State Comptroller Jason Mumpower: "This is the worst management of any organization I have seen in my career." With us to talk about these results is former Shelby County Commissioner and political analyst Mike Carpenter with Carpenter Civic Strategies. Thanks for joining us.
MIKE CARPENTER: Thank you, Christopher.
BLANK: Mike, we know the schools issue, especially in Shelby County, is a political lightning rod. Do the results of this audit justify the outright condemnation we heard at Wednesday's press conference?
CARPENTER: Well, I think you're 100% right that it is a political lightning rod and that's really what this audit was all about. I think that there is a lot of hyperbole, but I think that it is definitely an issue that needs to be taken seriously.
BLANK: Auditors noted just over 170 deficiencies or red flags, ranging from contract spending to cyber security. What stood out to you?
CARPENTER: I think what stood out to me were a couple of things. One is the sloppiness, the record keeping, the lack of support for expenditures that were made. At the same time, what stood out to me is that at least so far, the auditors haven't identified any malfeasance. There's still more to go, but it's more of an issue of, again, sloppiness than it is an issue, so far, of anything nefarious. And the auditors actually wrote overall we thought individuals were very knowledgeable of the processes and procedures for which they are responsible and were able to provide the information needed. The fact is: there are competent people there, but for for a variety of reasons the record-keeping is not up to par.
BLANK: Democratic Sen. London Lamar responded to this announcement. She says the audit cost $6 million dollars to find less than $3 million in bookkeeping irregularities across a 5.7 billion dollar budget over 3 years. Here's her quote, "That's a fraction of a fraction of 1%." Your response to that?
CARPENTER: You know, I respect Sen. Lamar, but I think that she's looking at it the wrong way, because one thing you have to remember about audits, and this is any audit, is that when the auditor comes in, they're looking at a sampling. They're not reviewing every single record. So in the sampling so far, they found about $3 million worth of problems. So, I think you can't really look at it that way. I do think that it is true that we're talking about an organization with a $1.8 billion budget with 14,000 employees and 106,000 students. So when the comptroller says he's never seen a company with a worse example of... well, it's because he hasn't dealt with too many $1.8 billion companies. That's not excusing what's happening, but just saying that I think it's important to put it in perspective.
BLANK: One thing these results made clear was that Rep. Mark White and Sen. Brent Taylor now have what they need to push their intervention bill. Opponents call it a takeover bill. It would essentially allow state government to appoint a board of managers to oversee the district for a few years, essentially making our elected school board irrelevant or useless. So far, the argument against the bill is that it takes away local control of our schools. Every other district in the state gets to pick who runs their schools. How does this report impact that argument?
CARPENTER: This bill was going to pass whether or not this audit was done. I think this gives them justification for it, but I don't think we should be fooled into thinking that there was any chance they weren't going to move forward with this bill if the audit came back clean.
BLANK: Well, finally, how would you characterize the school board's decision to make Roderick Richmond, the permanent superintendent just ahead of both this audit and this legislation, which could change everything about the school system?
CARPENTER: If they were going to make Dr. Richmond the superintendent, they should have already made him the permanent superintendent. And I think the audit sort of backs that up a little bit, because one of the things the auditors point out is the change in leadership across every year they looked at. So, in regard to Dr. Richmond, I think stabilizing the school system with a leader, regardless of which one it is -- stabilizing the school system is important, so that everybody knows who the leader is and what the expectations are and somebody is responsible for ultimately implementing these recommendations from the auditors.
BLANK: Where do you think the school system is just in the short term? It seems like this could be a period of of chaos and confusion just ahead.
CARPENTER: I think it's absolutely going to be a period of chaos and confusion. This board that is going to be appointed after this legislation passes, there's going to be a lot of questions. And yes, they're going to appoint people from Shelby County, but how many of those folks are going to be donors or good Republicans, so to speak? And so you got the political question. Then you've got the question of what does this look like day to day? So, when the school board makes a decision, does the nine-member board look at all of those decisions? Do they cherry-pick the decisions? What obligation does the superintendent, for example, who's the employee of the board, have to this body? There's just going to be a lot of operational kinds of issues that pop up.
