The Fort Bend ISD School Board recently announced plans spend an appalling $18 million to give 2nd through 8th graders iPads in lieu of traditional textbooks. Do they expect taxpayers to ignore their role as lead plaintiff in one of the school finance lawsuits?...
Waste Watch
Fiesta Time in Denton?
Bureaucrats at Denton ISD would have you believe that the district never had any budget issues, had superior instructional spending rates, and never even considered joining one of the state finance lawsuits, given the district just approved a new Mariachi program for...
There’s No App For That
Even at a time when a record number of school districts are challenging Texas’ school finance system, school districts are still finding ways to waste taxpayer money. New Braunfels ISD’s push to spend tax dollars on new iPads for students is just the latest example....
West Coast Waste
It was evident from the mass transit projects and plastic bag ban that the Austin City Council wants to make Austin look (and spend) like a West Coast utopia. Now they want to go one step further, imitating the City of Portland by paying city employees to take...
Disposing of Facts
Accuracy has never been a virtue of the Austin City Council. A new report finds that the City of Austin severely overestimated the amount of littered bags and possible savings used to justify their new ban on plastic and paper shopping bags. Austin’s most serious...
Charging Cars, Draining Taxpayers
They’ve got a long way to go, but San Antonio is certainly trying hard to become a cesspool of government waste and inefficiency like their neighbors in Travis County.
Allen Throws Taxpayers Under Bus
There is no doubt Allen has experienced rampant population growth over the past few decades, so the school district is building a new bus barn. Rather than renovate the existing facility, bureaucrats naturally want to instead build a brand new $40 million structure....
Part Four: Venturing Capital With Taxpayer Money
Since the Harris County Department of Education hasn’t been in charge of managing public schools for over 90 years, it’s had to find another way to spend its taxpayer funds: investing in for-profit businesses. Apparently, venture capitalism is one of the many...
Part Three: So Inefficient, It Should Be Unconstitutional
How much did you spend on food and drinks in a four-month span? The Harris County Department of Education spent about $72,000 in taxpayer funded “Restaurant/Refreshment” purchases from August to December last year, a microcosm of waste so bad that many would consider...
Tax Dollars Going Up In Smoke
Cap Metro is ready to spend federal stimulus money to expand the nanny-state governance encompassing the City of Austin. They now want to institute a smoking ban at all bus stops. The cost? $254,000. But that’s not the best part. Spending $254,000 of federal stimulus...