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When Westie is Interim Superintendent during the 85 days between when Dr. Keegan leaves and Dr. Kishimoto arrives, there will be an opportunity to repudiate what the Arizona Schools Risk Retention Trust (ASRRT) has done to GPS and the Gilbert community in recent years.
The Trust [two capital T’s to inspire Tremors and Trepidation!] uses tax dollars that have been tossed into a black hole without accountability to taxpayers and citizens. At the end of this post, we feature a briefing by Mike Tiffany, of Ashton Tiffany, the company that runs ASRRT, aka The Trust. The GPS Governing Board and members of the community learned some amazing facts about ASRRT, aka The Trust, at a recent board meeting, and even more about the umm … shall we say “culture” of this organization.
When asked by a board member who handles the auditing and oversight of The Trust, the answer was there’s an audit once every five years. Need anyone ask how much mischief can be accomplished in five years of oversight-less crony rewarding? The dollars keep coming in to The Trust, and many of them wind up in the pockets of a cadre of pet lawyers. In fairness, The Trust representative, Mike Tiffany, said they use about twenty different law firms across the state to do the Goliath number against anyone who dares to make a claim against a school district … like students, moms and dads or vulnerable teachers, the board member pointed out.
Mike Tiffany said The Trust claims to be careful in applying their “best coverage” for school districts. “We don’t want to walk all over somebody when they don’t deserve it,” he said. We’ve told you about some pretty nasty lawsuits The Trust has waged against vulnerable people, all in the name of “excellent coverage.” GPS brought a lawsuit against a mom who wanted common sense, reasonable services for her child; GPS ultimately settled and did what the mom wanted, but spent a bunch of taxpayer money pursuing that puffing and posturing incident, and only after a pet attorney collected some sweet legal fees. A Trust lawyer, Matthew W. Wright, and his buddy The Trust President Clyde Dangerfield went all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court to fight for the right of a bunch of administrators to strip-search adolescents at school. Then there is the student who had both her legs broken while she was in the care of GPS employees; GPS and The Trust not only fought tooth and nail, they went after the parents for attorney fees after the judge ruled in favor of the student.
The Trust prides itself on retaining control of claims, leaving Governing Boards totally out of the loop in litigation. The Trust retains control of litigation, “I think we do a good job,” and “I think the boards walk along with us throughout the litigation.” Mike Tiffany claims the boards “advise us on what they would like to happen” regarding litigation. Well, that claim to fame got booted out the door with this question: when asked what can a board do when an attorney won’t engage with the board, Mike Tiffany said, “Tell the Trust it’s not working out.” Then The Trust will not assign that attorney to that board’s claims again. Great oversight, Trust dudes — the same attorneys work across all the school districts, doing what they want to do with no oversight. No accountability, again. That’s a feature, not a bug.
The Trust must be feeling some heat about something or other. True to form for Good Old Boys and GPS, during his presentation, Mike Tiffany brags about an award The Trust won. In our post, Dubious Awards and Squandering Tax Dollars, we showed how the company that manages The Trust’s money used some big words to deflect attention from the fact that a professional organization recently made up this award … that’s what “inaugural recipient” means. Busted!!! Look at what we posted more than two months ago:
Just another case of diverting attention from embarrassing facts, it appears. Gee, that award came at just the right time, huh? Right when Good Old Clyde and The Trust were squirming out from under the lawsuit that GPS brought against CrossPointe with a whole bunch of other lawsuits pending. The big problem for taxpayers was that Clyde didn’t read the CrossPointe contract he advised the board to sign, and later, when there was a question, well … let’s just say our boy had to admit he hadn’t read it. Staff had begged Clyde to read the contract before it went to the governing board, which was expecting something really different than what the contract said. GPS was flush with lots of taxpayer money from a technology override, and for some reason or another, someone wanted to give a contract to a different company … perhaps to extricate Clyde from his dilemma of not reading the CrossPointe contract?
When asked directly about oversight for attorneys running up legal fees under prepaid legal programs, Mike Tiffany talked about some pretty much nonexistent checks and balances. Actually, he said The Trust hires “the best attorneys” at discounted rates. If you believe there’s no incentive to churn up fees by those lawyers, we have a bridge in Brooklyn for sale. The Trust claims to review monthly metrics under their prepaid legal program, knowing what it should cost for a given type of claim. Sounds to us like The Trust is monitoring to make sure those attorneys get every last dime in the prepaid legal pot before the end of the fiscal year. Here’s why: “We have responsibility for the final say in the settlements.”
Here are some pointed questions put to The Trust: “What if our own employee created a significant loss? Can ASRRT reimburse Gilbert Public Schools for the loss?” A GPS employee acted with negligence. Board members don’t think the community should suffer. Mike Tiffany pointed out The Trust covers employees, too. File that claim, GPS! Good thing for Good Old Dave that he’s got indemnity on top of insurance coverage!
Let’s connect some more dots: The Trust’s nine million dollar office building is a symbol of unrestrained spending of money that belonged to the public. First, about that office building:
The office building was not on the market at the time of sale and was sold “as is.” Thomas Jacobs of Grubb & Ellis/BRE Commercial represented the buyer.
Then, look at who lobbies for ASRRT:
Nahh … just a coincidence. Another coincidence: The Trust and Ashton Tiffany have the same address, according to Google. What’s a few million among friends? Funds not paid out during the year for losses or administration are retained by the Trust… Unless a company wants some new offices, and their pals can indulge them? Cozy!
Here is the GPS Governing Board February 11, 2014 meeting, cued up to the briefing about ASRRT: