Adrian Bustillos, center, listens as he is voted in as the new San Antonio Independent School District superintendent on Monday, July 20. The district expects an audit of 2020 bond spending to be complete by the end of the month.
Alma E. Hernandez/For the San Antonio Express-News
A Houston-based accounting firm reviewing how the San Antonio Independent School District managed its $1.3 billion 2020 bond is expected to complete its report by the end of the month.
Weaver and Tidwell LLP is tracing where bond funds approved in 2020 went, and how the district has managed them. The district hired the firm last month, and it began its audit on Sept. 30. District spokesperson Laura Short did not provide the cost of the firm’s contract.
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The audit will examine where the district moved bond funds, how much money remains from the 2020 package, whether contractor records and payment data show irregularities and whether the documents point to fraud, according to a presentation provided to the SAISD audit committee Tuesday.
“If there’s explicitly fraud, then we owe reports to TEA (Texas Education Agency) and the FBI (Federal Bureau of Investigation),” SAISD Chief of Audit and Performance Abby Garland said. “To be very clear, that is not the case now. We don’t have that. But if that happens, then that would be the next step.”
Voters will decide on Nov. 3 whether to approve a $600 million SAISD bond package to improve schools, the first district bond proposal since the 2020 package. The 2020 bond is under scrutiny, with $420 million unspent six years later and several projects stalled. Two senior district leaders are on leave in connection with the bond spending. The district has declined to comment on the personnel decisions.
The Houston-based firm is expected to complete its report in late October and present it to trustees at the board’s Nov. 10 audit committee meeting, a week after Election Day. Trustees Ed Garza, Jacob Ramos and Mike Villarreal serve on the committee.
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What will the audit examine?
Weaver and Tidwell’s forensic audit is the most detailed review of the 2020 bond possible for SAISD, Garland said.
“It’s very comprehensive. So a typical audit is going to sample, right? … They are running comprehensive reports. They’re pulling large data sets,” Garland said. “It’s six years of data.”
Another outside group also may be involved in examining the 2020 bond. Plano-based R.L. Townsend & Associates, LLC, which specializes in analyzing construction project spending and scope, is looking to see if the district overspent on construction projects.
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Townsend & Associates has provided services to SAISD since 2022, but it is unclear what work it was hired to do previously. Short did not respond to questions about previous projects involving the firm and the district.
During Tuesday’s meeting, Garland said communication between the firm and SAISD and payments to the company had stalled earlier this year. Now, the two are back in touch and payments have resumed, she said.
“Townsend had not finished a single audit. They were unable to even issue a report,” Garland said of the firm’s recent work, adding the company hadn’t received responses from the district. “Now those responses are coming in.”
It is unclear when Townsend & Associates will provide a full report, but Garland said she expected the firm to share initial findings this month and possibly complete its review by December.
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Since voters approved the $1.3 billion bond in 2020, the district has run into roadblocks resulting in several delayed projects and hundreds of millions of unspent bond dollars. SAISD has cited soaring construction costs as one reason for the changed timelines.
When asked about the audit of the 2020 bond during a San Antonio Express-News Editorial Board meeting last week, Superintendent Adrian Bustillos declined to comment, saying he didn’t have the scope of work in front of him. He attended the two audit committee meetings in August and September, according to meeting minutes.