R-8 audit shows millions wasted to boost C. J. Huff's image, power

They buried the lead.

You can't blame a state auditing team for not knowing that in any good reporting you start off with a lead that will grab the reader's attention.

When I first examined the citizen summary of the Joplin R-8 State Audit this afternoon, I have to admit I was disappointed. I have reported on so many misuses of taxpayer dollars and so many costly flights of egotistical fancy from Superintendent C. J. Huff and his rubber stamp Board of Education that when I saw prominent placement given to items like concession stand money and school stores I thought the audit was a bust and that the Huff Administration and Anne Sharp and the rubber stampers had been given a license to milk the taxpayers for eternity.

When I took the time to examine the audit carefully, a true picture began forming- this document is a major indictment of C. J. Huff and, in fact, touches on several areas I have been writing about for months and some that I have never touched on.

None of it looks good for the self-proclaimed hero of the Joplin Tornado.

The auditors were critical of the eight million dollars in "might-as-well" spending that Huff added to the cost of building the high school. At a time when he is already predicting that the fund balance will dip to eight percent, Huff thinks nothing of spending millions on artificial turf for practice fields, concession stands, an extra track, more tennis courts, and lighting for all of the fields at the high school. It is no secret that most of the planning for the educational part of the high school was done by Huff's former Assistant Superintendent Angie Besendorfer. The "might-as-well" spending put Huff's eight million dollar stamp on an already overpriced building.

Another item that I overlooked the first time was the more than $4 million  Huff spent in an unsuccessful effort to repeat his 2011 post-tornado promise of starting school on time. 

(T)he construction manager incurred acceleration costs to ensure the high school and technical center would open on time for the 2013-2014 (sic) despite delays from site remediation of an old abandoned mine at the building site. The district did not obtain adequate supporting documentation to ensure payments to the construction manager were reasonable and comply with the contract provisions for the general conditions fees and acceleration costs.

While other construction invoices are reviewed by the construction manager prior to district review, only the district is responsible for reviewing the construction manager's invoices so it is important the district receive detailed information to do this effectively. General conditions fees and acceleration costs totaled $1,474,489 and $2,788,146 as of November 2014, respectively, for the school construction projects.

The audit also touched on another subject that it has been written about on this blog- C. J. Huff's biggest vanity project- Bright Futures USA.

The audit noted that Bright Futures USA, which we have always been told is a not-for-profit which is not associated with the school in any way, is being allowed to use taxpayer-financed facilities without paying any rent or utilities.

While we have often been told how Bright Futures USA came into being because of the need after the Joplin Tornado, the idea of going national started long before the tornado. Documents filed in the Missouri Secretary of State's office show Bright Futures USA was incorporated in November 2010, a full six months before the tornado and only seven months after Bright Futures Joplin was formed.

The incredible amount of money spent on travel, another subject which has been touched on frequently in this blog, was mentioned prominently in the audit. That amount, of course, included the at least $89,000 Huff told the Joplin Globe had been spent on "thank-you" travel where he hopscotched around the United States thanking those who helped Joplin after the tornado (and telling them how he declared that school would start on time and lifted the spirits of everyone in the city).

The auditors recorded that during a three-year period, the district spent nearly one million dollars, $345,877 in 2011-2012, $302,860 in 2012-2013, and $349,952 in 2013-2014 for travel.

It does not appear that C. J. Huff or the Board of Education took any steps to cut down on the excessive travel to save money at a time when fund balances were already predicted to dip to eight percent. Just let them keep falling and then, somehow, miraculously, we will have a 25 percent fund balance sometime in the near future.

The Joplin R-8 state audit is not going to send anybody to prison. Many of the other things that Huff has come under criticism for could be filed away under poor leadership, bullying, and sheer self-indulgence, but when you have a Board of Education that wants nothing more than to bask in the glory of this self-appointed hero, there is not much even state auditors can do.

Make no mistake about it, this audit is an indictment of C. J. Huff and the Joplin R-8 Board of Education.

Now it is time for the voters to take the next step.
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 How did we get into this situation. The entire story will be told when my book, Silver Lining in a Funnel Cloud: How Greed and Corruption Destroyed the Joplin Tornado Recovery is published sometime in May. Learn how the City of Joplin and the Joplin R-8 School District started down their current paths in my approximately 100-page preview available at the link below from Amazon Kindle.