I applaud the school for changing how they are handing out bags of cash to Diane Rodriguez on her zero accountability contracts. It was nice to see for a change there was some cost transparency. I am not certain what caused that change of heart, but at least we can now all see the heist in plain sight.
What stood out to me was “single source justification”. What we have here is not a single source, it is a person that managed to try and write herself into a grant. The grant should never have been approved for a specific person over a service. I can guarantee the state would gladly approve having a CPA over Diane Rodriguez.
That brings me to what exactly is sole source? Sole source is used to indicate that Diane Rodriguez, is the only person in the country that can perform the services requested. The claim they are making is that no other finance person, nor a CPA has the ability to perform the functions of the service.
I personally find this extremely hard to believe. She doesn’t use proprietary software, systems, intellectual property, or any variation thereof to “audit” the files. In fact, she is not even qualified to perform audits. She lacks any credential or higher education that would even make her remotely fit for the duty she is getting the cash windfall on.
Making it even worse, Diane Rodriguez has no grants experience. Absolutely zero qualification to run, audit, monitor, or recommend anything under a state or federal program. It is nothing more than a disguise where the Grants Manager will be doing all the work and Diane will be billing hours for herself.
Diane is not even a sole source based on location. She is taking money out of the community by not even living here. She lives in Elko county across the state. Since working remote, the District effectively expanded their claim that there is no one qualified to do the work in the country. Since she is remote, any person with a high school diploma and minimal experience would be a potential bidder on this type of project, particularly at that price. She is making almost as much as the CFO, but working 1/2 the hours.
It is actually a huge disservice to not have this bid out. Not only is her cost clearly unreasonable, but at that price point they could probably get a CPA to review files for completeness. I have always believed that Mineral County should have the best it can afford, not bottom of the barrel, but here we are.
The way you change the Mineral County School District is through hiring qualified people, not the same ones that tried to stuff a general funded person into a grant without telling them. That is basically what this contract pays for, to try and keep staffing low, wages low, and move people into funding sources that aren’t sustainable.
Other items on the agenda could potentially qualify as single source. They are service providers with intellectual property. I am not opposed to Single Source, but has to be legitimate and not a windfall. For that reason, the Diane Rodriguez contract should be placed out to bid. The school district can do better and probably for a whole lot less.
