March 2009
Guard, air guard chiefs canned over extra paycheck... →
The top bosses of both the National Guard and the Air National Guard in Texas have been canned amid allegations that they double-dipped on paychecks — getting paid by both the state and the federal…
Houston-area bloggers, you’re invited to our April... →
Texas Watchdog offers training programs on an ongoing basis to bloggers, citizen-journalists, and activists of all political persuasions. (More on that here.)
We enjoyed getting to know several local…
Texas post office official at center of... →
CNN’s investigative team has come out with a report about how the U.S. Postal Service — you know, the folks who are about to jack up the cost of a stamp AGAIN — has been in the habit of losing big…
Public records and football go together like... →
The Westlake Picayune has used the state’s open records law to show that the new Westlake football coach will be paid $115,760 per year, making him one of the state’s best-paid high school football…
Texas state employees’ 2008 pay data posted online →
The San Antonio Express-News and the Houston Chronicle have posted a searchable database of pay data — including regular pay, bonuses and overtime — for 175,000-plus Texas employees. The Express-News…
Transparency Camp brings together brainy folks to... →
It’s not often that you get to be in on the ground floor of a movement. But I hope that a movement is what will come out of an extraordinary event that I attended this past weekend in Washington,…
Austin newsman Elkins to lead FOI Foundation of... →
TV newsman Keith Elkins will be the new executive director of the Freedom of Information Foundation of Texas, Jim McNabb reports. FOIFT recently moved from Dallas to Austin.
Dallas Mayor Tom Leppert goes to Austin to talk up... →
Last month, while reporting about legislation to establish a new publicly funded law school in downtown Dallas, I got the sense that the measure would fail. In addition to a crippling economy, last…
Secrecy will taint HISD superintendent search:... →
The Chronicle’s Lisa Falkenberg had an excellent column yesterday about secrecy in the searches for Texas school superintendents — and how Houston ISD’s search for a new superintendent will be…
AP: State Rep. Trey Martinez Fischer proposes more... →
Some of the most important journalism over the last fifty years has depended on confidential sources. Without them, Nixon would have finished out his second term. Recently, though judges have…
MTA board to vote on billion-bucks contract that... →
A government agency is set to vote on a contract that involves billions — yes, billions with a B — of your tax dollars — but you apparently have no right to know how much money is involved or the…
More bars behind on their tabs with alcohol... →
From the “I Didn’t Even Realize the State Kept Up with That Stuff” file, the Dallas Morning News has a great piece using public records to show that more alcohol retailers in Texas are behind on…
AT&T customers: LegeTV coming to a set near you... →
A quick snippet of a post by David Rauf at the Texas Politics blog: AT&T agreed today to broadcast daily sessions of the Texas House beginning in April to viewers across the state via its U-Verse…
David spends like Goliath: Dallas City Council... →
I don’t know what’s worse: That Dallas City Council member David Neumann managed to overspend his office’s budget by $8,000 at a time when the city faces a $100 million deficit — or that when the…
El Paso County’s top-paid employee: $225K →
Seventy El Paso County workers made six figures in calendar year 2007 — and a few other county workers put in enough overtime to nearly double their regular pay.
Those are among the findings of Texas…
Royce West’s law firm’s seven-figure billing... →
State Sen. Royce West’s law firm has billed the Dallas Independent School District for more than $3.8 million in legal fees from 2002 to October 2008.
See below for correspondence between West and…
West: ‘I would never carry a bill that would carry... →
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West seems like an odd person to file the bill in the first place.
From 2002 to October 2008, he has billed the school district almost $3.9 million for representing the district in…
Public contracts subject to less public review... →
It’s a one-two punch. State Sen. Royce West has a plan to make public contracts easier to enlarge without public review. The measure could also help West’s own lawyering work and his firm’s bottom…
Texas Watchdog featured in WFAA-TV report exposing... →
Channel 8 — Dallas/Fort Worth’s WFAA-TV — has been shining the spotlight on some lavish spending at taxpayers’ expense by Mesquite city officials. The big bite out of the taxpayers’ wallet came…
Chronicle surveys school chiefs’ perks, including... →
The Houston Chronicle’s Ericka Mellon brings us a handy guide to area school superintendents’ compensation packages, which are enlarged with money for cars, club memberships and fancy phones like…