County leaders won't seek info on school board corruption | Hour 1

What's going on? Thank you so much for listening to this podcast. It is heard live every day from noon to three on WBT radio in Charlotte. And if you want exclusive content like invitations to events, the weekly live stream, my daily show prep with all the links, become a patron, go to the peak calendar show.com. Make sure you hit the subscribe button, get every episode for free right to your smartphone or tablet. And again, thank you so much for your support. All right, so it is a day that ends in Y, and so we have more news regarding the corruption scandal that is engulfing the Charlotte-Mecklenburg School District. So a couple different developments here over the last 24 hours or so. I spent my evening suffering through the Mecklenburg County Board of Commissioners meeting, ran over three hours. Ugh. And they decided by a four to four tie vote not to ask the school district for financial information pertaining to the money at the heart of the corruption scandal. Okay, so former school board member, current county commissioner, former county chairman, George Dunlap was not in attendance last night. And so he was not there to cast a vote. And so the board split four to four. And so they did not have a majority of the votes to request the information. That's all it was going to be because that's all they can do. It was the very last item on the agenda. And the county board chairman, Mark Jarrell, he started off by making sure to make it very clear that they're not here And their purpose of this discussion is not to tear down anyone. We're not tearing down the community. We're not tearing down the teachers. We're not tearing down administrators. We're not tearing down students. We're not tearing down bus drivers. We're not tearing down cafeteria workers. I mean, you get the idea. He reinforced this a lot. that we're not here to tear anyone or anything down, okay? I want to be clear on the reason why I wanted to bring this forward, and it was really about information. I know people are looking for something explosive and something that is going to be to tear down the community. This is for information and education. All right, so first off, note what he's doing there. Now, he's very good. He's a very good politician. I give him a lot of credit for this. Very even-handed, even-keeled, right? But what he's doing there, he is ascribing motive. He's ascribing motive to anybody that's expressing concerns or using the information that has been coming out as, you know, show prep for their afternoon radio show, for example. He's ascribing motive that all we're here to do is tear down. We're not here because we're super mad. at the corruption. We're not saying these things or asking these questions because we're outraged at the corrupt behavior. No, we're just here to tear it all down. Okay, well, in my case, I have said I do want to blow up the K-12 school model. But the reason why is because it's poor record and it leads to things exactly like this, okay? So people demanding information, people wanting to know what county dollars were diverted, what were they diverted from? Because that's what Arthur Griffin was asking for an accounting of. What money was used from the county? What was it supposed to be used for? And did it go there or did it get diverted someplace else? That's what he was seeking. That is a completely reasonable ask. Completely reasonable. All of us taxpayers have poured money into the county coffers and they have then funneled almost a billion of it every year over to. The school district. So we have a right to know whether or not some of that money was lining the pockets of political allies of the school board chair. Former chair. She stepped down from the chairmanship, not the board. She's still on the board. So she'll still be casting votes along with her four in the political majority block there on the commission or on the school board, rather. But I recognize what Mark did there. He's ascribing motive to everybody who is concerned, everybody who's mad. And he's like, oh, you just came here expecting us to tear it down. You want to use this to tear down the CMS thing? I will tell you, I would like to see the people on the school board be removed from office. Yeah, that's not tearing down. That's suffering the consequences of your actions. And as Michelle Crouch documented over at the Charlotte Ledger, it is starting to seem like this was a strategy that was being rolled out over the course of months. the dismantling of oversight, the removal of guardrails in order to funnel the funds to political allies. We'll get to it. Here's more of Jarrell. And the final thing that I would say before I turn it over to the manager and Adrian, I hope as a community, we're all being forward thinking or having our eyes where they should be. with respect to our children, supporting our families, supporting the educators and teachers not to tear down. Um, and so this is an opportunity though, for us to be able to address, uh, the items that we want to address, um, and speak, um, and make sure that we stay within our scope. Right. So he's what prompted this. And after watching the nearly hour long discussion about it, um, It became apparent to me, just as an outside observer, but it seems pretty obvious, that county commissioners have been asking questions amongst themselves and to their county manager. And they want to know, like, what information can we get? How much oversight can we provide? What authority do we have, right? What can we do? And that's a different question and answer than what should we do, right? And so the county manager, Mike Bryant, he gets up and he outlines in a 22-minute speech, basically, he lays out the role and the authority of the Board of County Commissioners over the school board under state law. Mecklenburg County provided CMS with nearly $ 700 million in operating funds. This amount represents 27% of our $ 2. 6 billion operating budget. If you add CMS debt service, we are providing CMS 900 million, nearly $ 1 billion as part of our fiscal year 2027 operating budget, which represents 35% of our $ 2. 6 billion operating budget. The county funding supports funds for local teachers, salary supplements, payment to charter schools, and instruction. As we all are aware, there are allegations of the mismanagement of funds by CMS. On the evening of September the 22nd, I received a communication from former superintendent Dr. Hill stating that the alleged mismanaged funds are local dollars. I shared that message with the board yesterday The following morning, as I shared with you in my communication on September 23rd, the alleged misuse of local funds for questionable CMS transactions is concerning, and I can assure you I take seriously, as you and the residents of Mecklenburg County have entrusted me to be a good steward of taxpayer hard-earned dollars. All right. And then he went on to outline the state statutes. that say basically once you give the money to the school district, that's it. It's up to them. And if you don't like it, then next year don't give them the money, basically. Now, there was another story that I saw. I'm going to go down this, well, hang on a second. No, you know what? I will finish that point for us before I go. Down the timing of the FBI, because the WBTV had an interesting detail they reported yesterday about the timing of the FBI probe. And it's got me thinking differently about an aspect of the timeline and about how things unfolded. So I will get to that. And we'll get to the lack of authority here that the county has in overseeing CMS funding. The holidays will be here before you know it, and so now is the time to create precious and priceless family heirlooms that will last for generations. Take your old photos, slides, films, and tapes to create a video in Mint Hill. There, they'll turn those memories into the story of your lives. memories from past family events captured forever to pass down to future generations create a video skilled team will professionally transfer your family's stories onto easy to use usb drives or dvds that won't deteriorate over time like the old photos and tapes are doing right now They will create a keepsake video that you can share and copy and keep forever. I can see it now. You're gathered around the holiday table with your loved ones, watching all these memories and people of your lives. 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North Carolina General Statute 115C indicates that the financial oversight of a local school district is the responsibility of the State Board of Education. Section 451 describes the State Board of Education's role in ensuring compliance, with state laws. Most notably, North Carolina General Statute 115C-451 reads as follows. The State Board of Education shall be responsible for assuring that local boards of education comply with state laws and regulations regarding the budgeting, management, and expenditure of funds. Section 447 relates to the requirement to conduct an independent annual audit. Conduct. Question number two. Can the board receive more information on the school system's finances? The answer to that question, although the board of. Commissioners is not responsible for the oversight of the school finances, the board of commissioners may request in writing copying the superintendent a statement of financial condition of the school system. prepared by the school finance officer. Such a statement may inform the board of the district's financial condition, but would not likely include details of all vendor transactions and would not likely provide detailed insight into specific contracting issues or instances where internal controls were bypassed. Okay, so what does all that mean? Well, it sounds like he has lined this up in order to make the argument that you don't have the authority to go deep into the finances of CMS. You don't have oversight authority as the law states. But you can ask. You can ask for the information. But what he said there at the end there was that it's not likely that you'll get sort of the deeper dive information. I mean, you can still ask, right? Think about if he were pushing for the disclosure of as much information as possible. I can imagine you would construct that presentation a little differently. You would say, we don't have oversight authority, but we can ask, and we can ask for these explicit things. And by the mere fact that the county funds CMS to the tune of $ 700 million a year, plus another $ 200 for capital, like it's $ 900 million. And so that's your funding source if you're a CMS. That's your funding source. So you would probably feel some sort of pressure to give them what they ask for. For fear that if you don't, then you're not going to get that same amount of money next year, right? Because you keep asking. Every year I call this the dance because CMS always comes to the county commission. They ask for, you know, a trillion dollars and then they don't get it. And then they complain that we're being cut and all of this. And that's been and that's a normal budget process. The budget dance occurs, you know, across all facets of government and in the private sector as well. Right. If you don't use your whole budget, then they cut your budget because you need all of that. Right. So I understand you ask for more and then they give you a little bit less, but you still got more than you or you still got what you needed. Right. But he didn't frame it like that. He didn't frame it like you can ask these questions and we can ask for specifics, but they're under no obligation to give us that level of detail. He could have framed it like that, but he did not. And I suspect given the way the vote shook out because the chairman, Mark Jarrell, he voted against asking for the information. He voted against that. He was one of the four votes against. And he's been in communication. He's been talking with the county manager. The county manager, Mike Bryant, made that presentation last night because Mark Jarrell. Asked him to do so. And so I have to wonder now, was the tone, was that constructed because there was a general agreement between Jarrell and Bryant about how we're going to approach this and we're going to basically say, Let everybody do their investigations. We are taking a hands-off approach because that's what the county commissioners who voted against looking any further or asking for any information, that's what they said. And that's what it sounded like the manager's presentation was directing them towards. That's what it sounds like. All right, real quick. Every government number gets revised, right? Every projection gets walked back. Gold does not file corrections like GovCo. Revelation Gold Group helps families hold physical gold and silver, including in a tax-advantaged gold IRA. It's real, it's in your name, and 10 minutes tells you if your retirement account qualifies. If you want to learn more, go to calendarmetals.com. That's calendarmetals.com. There is a link in the podcast description. Or if you want to talk to somebody, you can call 888-465-3049. All right, so the county manager, Mecklenburg County Manager Mike Bryant, noted last night in his 22-minute presentation to the county commissioners, noted all of the ongoing investigations into CMS right now and recommended that the county commissioners wait until all of those probes are concluded. In light of these interventions, I recommend that the board allow these pending investigations to conclude. I realize there is no timeline by which they will be concluded, and I certainly respect the urgency to act now. However, it is imperative that we remember that until proven otherwise, these are allegations. I believe the fact finding and investigation results from the two audits and criminal investigation will help inform the steps we might consider taking in the future as a funder for CMS. And in full transparency, the other reason why I suggest waiting is because, respectfully, given all of the uncertainty with CMS at this moment, I have more confidence and credibility in information that I will receive from the state auditor's office, DPI, and SBI than simply requesting financial information from our CMS colleagues. All right, so Note what he said there. He has more confidence in the information that will come from the State Bureau of Investigations, the Department of Public Instruction, and the state auditor. He has more confidence in what they produce than what CMS gives them. If you're CMS, that's not good. That's not good. You got the county manager who, you know, crafts the budget that you rely on to the tune of $ 700 million per year in operating funds. And he doesn't trust your numbers. He doesn't trust you to give him actual legitimate financial. That's a problem. I also want to make you aware that I have communicated with the state auditor's office, and the state auditor has accepted my invitation to brief the county commission on his financial audit findings once completed. The state auditor and I will meet on October 21st to discuss the status of the financial audit, as it may not be completed prior to our scheduled meeting in a couple of weeks. I do want to relay a message from the state auditor to the board. He respectfully requested that you remain patient and allow his office to complete their work. As it relates to the criminal investigations, As I shared with you, I have spoken with District Attorney Spencer Merriweather, and he indicated that nothing is required from the county at this time. I advised him that the county will fully cooperate in any way possible. And I'm confident that Mo Green, North Carolina Superintendent of DPI, will be willing to share the results of his findings as well. All right. So this is... despite my earlier. Questions about the way he constructed all of this, it's very clear he's recommending the county do nothing at this time, wait until the investigations are done. Now you're going to hear an opposing view that comes from Arthur Griffin, former school board chairman himself, now a county commissioner. He wanted to go a little bit different in a different direction. But this is a defensible position because the county does not have statutory oversight of CMS finances. That's the State Board of Education. And you've got the auditor now involved, right? You got SBI. You got the feds looking into this, too. So I understand. And if the state auditor, Dave Bolick, if he's telling the county manager, hey, just wait till we're done. I'll give you a brief and I'll come and brief the county commissioners. I'll spell it all out for you guys. And I have no doubt Bullock will do that. He's been very accessible to everybody. So it's a defensible position. Now, that being said, the county can meet with CMS if CMS voluntarily wishes to do so. Okay. CMS can provide whatever the county may want to request. If CMS agrees, they can do this. The county can make requests. CMS can voluntarily fulfill them. But the district has authority, the school district has the authority to spend the funding allocated to it by the board of county commissioners. Once the board budgets that allocation properly, CMS basically has a free hand to do with it what they want. Now, there are budget implications for next year because maybe next year the county commissioners may not be so thrilled to offer CMS all of the money that they've. Been giving them. The allegations are associated with alleged intentional mismanagement of funds. So, This may not necessarily be a process breakdown, but more of a questionable behavior that oftentimes the best of the best practices may not detect until someone blows the whistle. Right. And I believe that is correct. You can have all of these controls and audits, oversight. You can have these things in place. But if you have people inside the shop, that know where the controls are, know what's going to be looked at, have the power to divert funds in a certain way and are willing to engage in illegal activity. If you have people that wish to pursue those bad acts, they can do so. Now, they can eventually be caught, as we're kind of seeing right now. They can get caught if you have others who blow the whistle. And this is part of the problem when, you know, a system is captured by one particular entity. In this case, the Democrat Party. There's a lot of incentives built into not wanting to see the bad things because you don't want to hurt your own. They're your team. They're your friends and colleagues. You go to the fundraisers together, right? Campaign together, you make donations to them, they make donations to your campaign, all of that. So this is one of the problems that arises when you have a single party that controls every office. And I've been saying this for years now in Charlotte-Mecklenburg. This is a problem. And while Democrats want to constantly try to redistrict until the point where there's not a single Republican on any local governing body, that is not healthy for the community. It's not healthy for the body politic. It's not healthy for the Democrat Party either. A couple of messages from the text line. Tracy says, well, well, how interesting. The county commissioners will wait to hear what the auditor comes up with. No man really becomes a fool until he stops asking questions. That's why I keep doing it. I'm just asking questions. That's all I do. Think anything, this is from Dave. Think anything here with CMS and the county and city government problem could be the honesty and integrity of the Democrat Party? Look, the Democrats do not have a monopoly on poor ethics, okay? There are plenty of examples over on the Republican side as well. The problem is limited here to a large extent to the Democrat Party in Mecklenburg County because they are really the only party in town anymore. They're the dominant party. They control virtually every seat. And this is why I keep saying over and over again that this kind of corruption manifests more greatly when you have only one party in complete control. Because then stuff starts happening outside the public view. There isn't anybody in those closed sessions that are going to be empowered to call out their political opponents because they're not their political opponents. They are their political party members. And so you want to keep any of those disagreements outside the public view. But that That then fosters the very culture of corruption that we're seeing. It also empowers these organizations in Charlotte Mecklenburg, notably the one that's connected here is the Black Political Caucus. It empowers these organizations inside the Democrat Party machinery because they get to dictate the outcomes of the primary elections where people are elected with just several thousand votes. very low turnout elections, and they're able to put their people in their political allies. The party doesn't want to cross them if they can generate a lot of voters that turn out in the primaries, if they can donate a lot of money to campaigns, right? You don't want to be a Democrat going up against another Democrat who has the endorsement of the BPC. So you want to play nice with them. And so anybody who's now getting money from them or has been endorsed by them, worked for them. I mean, guys, like the now former school board chair, Stephanie Sneed, was the leader of the BPC. And the vice chair is also a member of the BPC, like their education committee chairman. So like the and maybe this stuff is part of whatever investigations are going on. I don't know. But these are the kinds of things that happen when you have this kind of one-party control in a jurisdiction. I've been saying it for years. Now, get this from WBTV's David Hodges. Sources tell WBTV that the investigation from the U.S. Attorney's Office and the FBI started before the request came. for a state investigation. Why is this important? Well, on September 18th, the Mecklenburg County DA asked the North Carolina State Bureau of Investigation to launch a criminal investigation into CMS. Now, remember, they fired Crystal Hill four days later, okay? But the DA asked the state to start looking into this. But according to this, Report at WBTV, the FBI in the U.S. Attorney's Office, they were already looking into CMS. And so to answer the question of why is this important? I would submit it's important because until now, we have viewed the action of the DA, Spencer Merriweather, to be of noble intention, right? That this is politically risky, crossing the Board of Ed, crossing the Black Political Caucus, right? That he's doing something that's brave. And I don't want to minimize that, yes, he is doing that too, but if the feds were already on the case, if they were already doing it, did Meriwether know this? Because if he knew that, Then, and I'm going to go out on a limb and say he probably did, because if the U.S. Attorney's Office or the FBI starts sniffing around, they start asking questions, they start giving subpoenas, right? They're asking for financials. The word gets around pretty quickly, and Merriweather's going to find out about it. Maybe both the FBI and the DA, maybe they were both tipped off at the same time. Maybe the superintendent, during her two-month paid vacation while she was suspended by the board before the board fired her, And she put together a 200-plus page memo full of all the contracts. Is it that hard to believe that she gave the FBI, the U.S. Attorney's Office, and the DA, gave it all to them too? I suspect that's probably likely. But I don't know. But it's probably likely. All right, that'll do it for this episode. Thank you so much for listening. I could not do the show without your support and the support of the businesses that advertise on the podcast. So if you'd like, please support them, too, and tell them you heard it here. You can also become a patron at my Patreon page or go to ThePeteCalenderShow.com. Again, thank you so much for listening, and don't break anything while I'm gone.