DeSantis' DoE/Jefferson OIG "review" ends without any evidence of investigation
DeSantis' spokeswoman Taryn Fenske vowed an "all of the above" and "holistic" review of the DoE/Jefferson/MGT bid-rigging scandal. Her boss and his IG made her a liar.
You will be shocked, shocked to learn that Gov. DeSantis, through his Inspector General Melinda Miguel, has ended the supposed “review” of the Florida Department of Education’s Jefferson County bid-rigging scandal without any discernible investigation into the many unanswered questions surrounding the scandal.
The DoE/Jefferson scandal directly touches high-ranking DeSantis’ administration officials and emerges directly from the heart of Jeb Bush-world’s lingering education privatization empire. So it’s pretty unsurprising that DeSantis’ OIG thinks “no further investigation is warranted” into this massive education privatization scandal.
Things OIG does not want you to know include:
How and why disgraced former Education Commissioner Richard Corcoran’s Department of Education came to draft a multi million dollar agreement with Trey Traviesa’s politically-connected MGT Consulting Group to help Jefferson County schools transition away from the abject privatization failure of the Academica Charter School company. Corcoran and Traviesa are old business partners and political allies.
How and why DoE then used this multi-million dollar MGT agreement as the “request for quote” template for a supposedly competitive bid process.
How and why DoE Chancellor Jacob Oliva — DoE’s top operational official — came to order DoE employee Caroline Wood on Nov. 5, 2021, to craft the “request for quote” using the draft MGT agreement.
A full public account of who attended and what happened at a Nov 1, 2021 meeting about the Jefferson transition, several days before Oliva ordered Wood to prepare the “request for quote” based on MGT’s draft agreement. The Tampa Bay Times has already identified Trey Traviesa, Jefferson’s elected superintendent Eydie Tricquet, and notorious charter school lobbyist and convicted criminal witness tamperer Ralph Arza as attending. Who else was there? What did they say? DeSantis banished Arza from his 2018 campaign because he considered him too racist. Why was he taking part in a high level meeting about Florida’s signature school privatization scheme? Is it because Arza relatives worked for Academica in Jefferson County? Is it because people like Patricia Levesque, who runs Jeb Bush’s eduction foundation, sit on Arza’s Florida Charter School Alliance board?
Why Superintendent Tricquet, on Nov. 8, the day the supposedly competitive “request for quote” was issued, told the elected Jefferson School Board that state officials had informed her that MGT was already selected and had a contract. “I do know on Nov. 29, MGT will be taking over,” Tricquet told board members. “I’ll know more when I’m meeting tomorrow with MGT.” This is documented by Tampa Bay Times.
Why DoE Vice Chancellor Melissa Ramsey “was under the impression that Commissioner Corcoran would be the one reviewing and approving the proposals submitted in response to the RFQ.”
Why Ramsey became the convenient scapegoat of the entire DoE/Jefferson scandal because of her likely well-intended, but still unethical, bid with Board of Education Member Andy Tuck. The MGT template “request for quote” went to 25 bidders. Only Ramsey/Tuck and MGT responded. DoE’s IG investigated Ramsey and Tuck immediately; and both resigned promptly. Yet, DoE and DeSantis still refuse to investigate DoE’s relationship to MGT. Why?
Why Corcoran, Oliva, Traviesa, DoE Inspector General Mike Blackburn, and top Academica and Jefferson County officials have never been put under oath to account for what happened.
All of those questions/issue are in the existing public record — either reported by the Tampa Bay Times/Miami Herald and other outlets; documented by internal DoE investigations; or caught on meeting tape. You can see an exhaustive summary of the full multi-year arc of the entire DoE/Jefferson/Academica privatization debacle and scandal here.
DeSantis’ Office of the Inspector General does not think, you, the tax-paying public, deserve any answers to any of these questions that are lurking in plain public sight. Indeed, the very fact that they are lurking in the open means “no further investigation is warranted,” according to OIG.
How can I say this with such directness?
FDOE OIG 2022-020063 Complaint Response
I know this because I was an official complainant who formally sought OIG investigation into the MGT-related revelations of the Tampa Bay Times/Miami Herald article and the DoE investigation of Tuck and Ramsey.
I provided written exhibits and even met formally, via telephone, with representatives of OIG Melinda Miguel’s Office on Feb. 16, 2022. My complaint had a number: 2022-020063.
More than three months later, on June 9, I received an email from “OIG” titled “FDOE OIG 2022-020063 Complaint Response.” Here is the full text:
Good Afternoon Mr. Townsend,
Thank you for the information you provided to the Office of the Inspector General. As you pointed out in your email dated February 15, 2022, and again in a subsequent conversation, the information provided was not your allegations, nor did you have any specific knowledge of the allegations beyond what you read in public records and public reporting. After reviewing your complaint, the information contained within your complaint, and other pertinent information, we have determined that no further investigation is warranted at this time. Should any new information be presented, the OIG reserves the right to re-open the complaint.
Again, thank you for your time and the information you provided.
I should note here that DoE IG Mike Blackburn — the same investigator who avoided investigating the dominant MGT part of the scandal when scapegoating Ramsey and Tuck — did most of the talking and questioning with me during my call with OIG investigators. So I did not expect any serious or courageous or professional action.
The state’s OIG investigators lived down to my expectations.
So what “pertinent information” did OIG “review” with “due diligence”?
However, investigators did not live up to the expectations set by Gov. DeSantis spokeswoman Taryn Fenske, who was very clear in this article from the Tampa Bay Times/Miami Herald on January 24, 2022.
TALLAHASSEE — Gov. Ron DeSantis’ chief inspector general is reviewing the handling of a bid-rigging probe at the Florida Department of Education, his office said Monday.
In a reversal from the office’s previous statement, DeSantis spokesperson Taryn Fenske confirmed Chief Inspector General Melinda Miguel is reviewing how the Department of Education and its inspector general handled the bid for a multimillion-dollar contract.
“She is doing her due diligence on all of the above,” said Fenske, the governor’s communications director.
Evidence shows the department tried to steer the contract to a politically connected vendor, but its inspector general did not investigate the matter.
The review, described by Fenske as a “holistic approach” to the issue, follows a request made by state Rep. Allison Tant, D-Tallahassee. Tant cited “irregularities” with the department’s procurement process following reporting by the Times/Herald.
Indeed, one might consider Fenske, on behalf of DeSantis, the actual complainant here. And OIG made a lie of what she claimed would happen. A “holistic,” “all of the above” review requires considerably more than the nothing investigators actually seem to have done.
I don’t waste much time in hoping for something to happen; but I do like to document who says something is going to happen so I can hold them to account and/or mock them when it doesn’t.
The only half indication that the investigators did anything — at all — beyond a short call with me comes from this line:
After reviewing your complaint, the information contained within your complaint, and other pertinent information …
I have no idea what “other pertinent information” is. But I suspect it’s “we learned DeSantis doesn’t want DoE/Jefferson to become a thing in his re-election campaign.”
OIG is daring you to dig into this giant story Times/Herald, Politico, Florida NPR.
This bizarre dance around the obvious — where investigators look for excuses not to do their jobs — is actually a news story in and of itself.
If this was news …
“She is doing her due diligence on all of the above,” said Fenske, the governor’s communications director.
Evidence shows the department tried to steer the contract to a politically connected vendor, but its inspector general did not investigate the matter.
The review, described by Fenske as a “holistic approach” to the issue, follows a request made by state Rep. Allison Tant, D-Tallahassee. Tant cited “irregularities” with the department’s procurement process following reporting by the Times/Herald.
So is this …
After reviewing your complaint, the information contained within your complaint, and other pertinent information, we have determined that no further investigation is warranted at this time. Should any new information be presented, the OIG reserves the right to re-open the complaint.
But it’s also way bigger than that.
The Academica privatization of Jefferson County was a huge state story — huge enough for NPR reporter Jessica Bakeman to produce a massive, outstanding, multi-media package called “Chartered: Florida’s First Private Takeover Of A Public School System.”
The complete failure of that privatization — which collapsed into a plain-sight scandal DeSantis’ OIG refuses to investigate — certainly warrants a sequel: Unchartered: how Academica, Richard Corcoran, and Florida’s powerful Jeb Bush-aligned privatizers failed, grifted, and then ran from tiny Trump-voting Jefferson County in scandal and disgrace.
For goodness sake, DeSantis just appointed state Sen. Manny Diaz, longtime Academica executive and architect of the entire failed Jefferson experiment and grift as Commissioner of Education for the entire state.
That alone demands much more work on this story, as does the Tampa Bay Times Pulitzer-winning “Failure Factories,” which set in motion the events that led to the DoE/Jefferson scandal.
OIG is also daring Melissa Ramsey and Andy Tuck to talk — and Democratic governor candidates to show a pulse
And look, Melissa Ramsey and Andy Tuck, how does it feel to watch Corcoran, Arza, Traviesa, Oliva, Diaz, Blackburn, and everybody else make you the villains while DeSantis names Academica’s Diaz Education Commissioner and gives Dark Helmet Corcoran a Board of Governors booby prize because no college will have him?
You can always talk to me if you want to set the record straight. I’m easy to reach.
But it would be even better to connect with a big news org with “any new information.” After all, “should any new information be presented, the OIG reserves the right to re-open the complaint.”
I suspect ya’ll have “new information” to share.
But the real way scandals get into the public mind is through politicians weaponizing them. And I don’t know how many different ways big bad Ron DeSantis can signal this scandal is not ground he wants to fight on.
DoE/Jefferson isn’t picking on vulnerable trans kids or race-baiting history class or pretending to fight with woke Disney.
This is high-level corruption and the state’s GOP privatizing elite cheating and harming a tiny Trump-voting community by decimating its schools and then trying to profit further from it. DeSantis doesn’t want that fight — especially not with Trump, who desperately needs a winnable fight with DeSantis.
Rep. Allison Tant used the fact of DeSantis’ weakness on DoE/Jefferson to push privatizers out and get Jefferson the same money Academica squandered because she acted in public and started to weaponize the scandal politically. If Charlie Crist and Nikki Fried can’t smell the same weakness coming off a dude whose entire brand and schtick is nasty strength, I probably can’t help them.
Let’s be clear: to fully investigate the MGT part of DoE/Jefferson — all its players and permutations — while under the thumb of Ron DeSantis would take a radical act of courage and professionalism. He would probably fire you the moment you tried to put somebody powerful under oath.
Doing your job when your job is bad for the boss means you don’t do your job — unless you’re a special kind of person.
I see no evidence that anybody in Florida’s OIG is a special kind of person. They will need more help to be forced to do their jobs. That was my intent in submitting a complaint. Perhaps documenting their laughable response will bring them more help.