Who allowed family members to serve on TUSD audit committee?

People on an audit committee — formed to help keep an eye on government financial practices and receive anonymous complaints of waste or fraud — should not be married to, or related to, the people being monitored.

That should go without saying, but this is the Tucson Unified School District.

News that three members of the district’s audit committee have family members in the district is a “how-to” of how to destroy public confidence in a district that so desperately needs it. The quarrel isn’t with the individual members, who by all accounts are qualified, but with the essential conflict of interest their presence represents.

The mystery, however, is how this came to be. Who decided to change the committee’s eligibility rules — and why?

Go back to last winter. On Jan. 27, TUSD employees interviewed Governing Board members at a workshop, asking for feedback about the clarity of intent, necessity and what, if anything, they would change about several district committees.

Residency, expertise, training, the need for a spirit of cooperation and support of the district — these were mentioned.

But no one, at least not on the recordings of those interviews, expressed the bright idea to include people who depend on the district for their financial well-being on the advisory audit committee that’s supposed to be keeping an eye on finances.

Yet, on Feb. 10, Superintendent H.T. Sanchez presented the board with a revised audit committee charter, saying, “We took feedback from the Governing Board and worked this into a draft.” Later he described the draft as a “reflection of conversations we heard” at the workshop — even though no one had said it.

Compare the before and after language describing who cannot serve:

From the charter amended on Aug. 11, 2009: “Anyone who within the last two years has been an employee of TUSD or sold goods or services to TUSD,” plus anyone who has been involved in litigation against TUSD, or owns or is a leader in a company that provides substantial goods or services to TUSD.

That’s followed by: “A close or immediate family member of anyone who would be prohibited from serving” and the term “‘close or immediate family member’ includes parent, sibling, nondependent child, spouse, spouse equivalent, or dependent, whether or not related.”

Perfectly appropriate, clear, concise.

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On March 10 the Governing Board adopted this language on who cannot serve:

“Is employed by the district” or “Is an immediate family member (spouse, spouse equivalent or dependent [whether or not related] of an individual who is an employee, officer or contractor providing services to the district.”

TUSD interprets this contorted sentence as barring only family members of contractors doing business with the district and that it doesn’t apply to family members of employees. And, so, three people whose spouses work for the district now sit on the audit committee. One member even asked the district if it was a problem and was assured it wasn’t.

Sanchez acts as if this isn’t a big deal because the audit committee doesn’t have authority to act, only the Governing Board does. He’s wrong. Ethical details matter.

He told Star reporter Alexis Huicochea, “The board was trying to clean up the three committees so they all have ad-hoc, nonvoting board members, all three don’t disallow someone who has a spouse, and all three provide expertise but ultimately nothing happens unless the board votes on it.”

He’s wrong about that, too. The other two committees don’t allow family members of employees to serve.

The Technology Committee’s charter, at least the only version, from Feb. 14, 2012, that I could find posted multiple times on the district’s website, including on a solicitation for applicants, includes the same language disqualifying employees’ family members as the original audit committee charter.

And, while the 21 pages that establish the TUSD Employee Benefits Trust don’t specifically bar employees’ family members from serving on a committee, a Web page asking for volunteers requests a résumé, three references, statement of interest and “a letter certifying that the applicant has no material financial or immediate family relationship with current Tucson Unified School District staff or vendors.”

Sanchez’s inability, or unwillingness, to see the problem this creates is a problem. He told Huicochea, “I don’t believe the fact that these three members have spouses in the district diminishes their insight as to what a good financial practice is,” he said.

If TUSD is to have any glimmer of hope for asking voters for more money through a budget override in the future — something the district needs — everything to do with finances must be handled meticulously and without a hint of questionable judgment. Sanchez and the board should understand that by now. Yet, here we are.

Think of it this way: Would you give money to someone who says: “Don’t worry about our institution’s long record of financial problems because things are all fixed now, and this seven-member committee of the district chief financial officer, a Governing Board member and three employees’ family members will make sure there’s nothing untoward going on?”

I wouldn’t.