I plan to vote for the HISD bond referendum. Like everyone else, I've got some problems with the way it was presented, but in the end I've come to believe it's better to have than not have. I was also glad to hear about the AFL-CIO's endorsement of the plan, and the deal that was worked out between HISD and the unions regarding apprenticeship and prevailing wages. As such, reading Lisa Falkenberg's column today makes me want to bang my head against the wall.
"What we were told by Saavedra and Lindsay is that they would recommend it to the board and it would happen," said Richard Shaw, secretary/treasurer for Harris County AFL-CIO Council. "On our part it's a leap of faith. We're basically taking Abe Saavedra's word for it."But this so-called agreement raises ethical questions about how far district officials are willing to go to get what they want.
Several school board members say they weren't consulted beforehand about any union deal and they said the board has historically fought attempts to raise the prevailing wage rate.
"It can't be a done deal. It's not up to the superintendent to approve things like that," said Harvin C. Moore, first vice president of the board. Besides, he said, "I don't think it has the votes to pass."
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District spokesman Terry Abbott adamantly rejected claims that Saavedra did anything wrong to get the union's support, or that he promised his support for beefing up wages and benefits knowing the board wouldn't support it.
"Dr. Saavedra doesn't work that way," Abbott said.
Abbott said there was never a formal agreement with union officials. He said Saavedra agreed to recommend the union proposal to the board, before he had even calculated the cost to the district, but didn't promise he could get it passed.
When I asked whether Saavedra was motivated by getting the union's support for the bond, Abbott couldn't answer that question.
I can't answer, either. I wasn't in the room when the deal was being made. But the whole ordeal casts more shadows on a bond issue that's been lacking in transparency from the start.
Saavedra claimed he hired private consultants to assess the district's needs early on to keep politics out of the process, but his recent dealings with the labor unions seem intensely political. Saavedra may have thought that he was getting an easy endorsement, but once again, he failed to vet the idea. Like the bond issue itself, it surfaced publicly and unexpectedly only to face harsh public scrutiny.