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Dallas School Board Takes Up Final, Controversial Audit On Superintendent Miles' Hires

Bill Zeeble
/
KERA

Dallas school board members will discuss the final audit reportof controversial expenses tied to employees hired by Superintendent Mike Miles. Trustees could also take action at tonight’s meeting.

Questions of well-paid employees hired without proper contracts and iffy receipts for moving expenses have already led to one resignation. The audit also found employees who didn’t use the time clock  and reimbursements to new hires who weren’t qualified to receive them.

The final report is toned down from the preliminary audit issued prematurely last month. It put Superintendent Miles a bit on the defensive at a mid-December press conference.

“I take responsibility for any procedural things that may be in the report, because we were moving fast. That’s my job. I was moving quickly. I asked my staff to move quickly.  I hired cabinet early in the summer, or asked Alan King to hire cabinet early in the summer before I took over. If people think that’s a procedural mistake, that’s not a violation of law, but yes.”

Miles said at the time that no laws were broken. The final audit does not counter that assessment. But it does offer recommendations and includes management responses. One expected change - guidelines for handling moving expenses. There aren’t really any now, and lack of guidelines created some real problems.

Bill Zeeble has been a full-time reporter at KERA since 1992, covering everything from medicine to the Mavericks and education to environmental issues.