More than four years after the State Board of Education and a community petition requested an audit of Western Heights Public Schools, State Auditor and Inspector Cindy Byrd released findings Thursday that detailed the district’s decision to defend a embattled former superintendent and board chairman during a dispute with the Oklahoma State Department of Education.
However, for the majority of questions raised in the 2021 initiative petition signed by about 1,000 district voters, Byrd issued no findings of impropriety.
“It is important to note that most of the findings and observations in this report pertain to actions taken by prior (Western Heights) boards of education, a former superintendent, and senior staff, that are no longer affiliated with the district,” the report stated.
In their 35-page report (embedded below), auditors reviewed 17 elements of the district’s finances and records between July 1, 2019, and June 30, 2021. A majority of the elements reviewed showed no findings or only minor errors. Five elements — legal expenses, payroll taxes, payroll, inventory and the superintendent’s hiring and contract — were found to be problematic.
Chief among them were the legal fees incurred by the district for defending former Superintendent Mannix Barnes when his state certification was revoked, which led to a bizarre dispute of dueling superintendents after OSDE took over operation of the district. A judge ultimately ruled that OSDE had legally assumed control of Western Heights.
“The district spent more than $1 million dollars in legal fees in just three years,” Byrd said. “This included pay for the district’s in-house attorney and legal fees to six outside law firms. Approximately $500,000 of these legal expenses were related to disputes involving the board, former Superintendent Barnes and the State Department of Education. This $500,000 represents a substantial use of public funds on matters that provided little to no direct benefit to students, staff or schools.”
In a press release, Byrd said the spending decisions, specifically the effort to fend off OSDE intervention, “raise significant concerns about board’s management of taxpayer money.”
“School leaders have a responsibility to act in the best interests of students, families, and taxpayers,” she said.
Western Heights ‘not the same district’ five years later
In the audit, which took about four years longer than Byrd originally predicted, officials said the district failed to catch errors in seven invoices provided by the law firm Colclazier and Associates, resulting in an overpay of $1,389.
According to the audit, the district paid attorney Jerry Colclazier $622,591 between 2020 and 2022 for representation of the board and — at times — Barnes, a Western Heights graduate whose litany of professional relationships with then-board President Robert Everman raised eyebrows.
In one contentious Western Heights board meeting, Colclazier clashed heavily with a contracted auditor who was presenting his findings about Barnes’ bonuses and other matters.
“Get a real lawyer! I’m out of here,” retired teacher Paul McCracken shouted before leaving the room. “I can’t listen to that crap!”
The audit released Thursday was requested by OSBE during a June 2021 meeting that saw Barnes’ educator certificate be suspended. In their new report, auditors found that Barnes accessed OSDE’s online account-management system for school district personnel 13 times while he was suspended.
“SDE arguably should have promptly terminated Barnes’ access following the suspension of his superintendent certificate,” auditors wrote.
Barnes was hired by Western Heights in 2019 without experience as a superintendent. At the time, Everman was chairman of the district’s school board. During the June 2021 meeting, OSBE notified the Western Heights board that if it did not suspend Barnes from his position and implement corrective actions, the district’s probationary status would be modified to include state intervention and the possible loss of accreditation.
The district had been on probation since April 2021, a designation the State Board of Education finally rescinded this October. At the time, numerous concerns had been raised about the southwest Oklahoma City district, including a board member’s consumption of alcohol during a public meeting and an independent audit report’s allegations that state law had been violated. The district was accused of paying off debt with 2018 bond proceeds meant for facility repairs.
During the June 2021 meeting, Brad Clark, then OSDE’s attorney, said other issues had been identified, including failures handle about $17.7 million in federal COVID-relief funds properly. Clark called the long relationship between Barnes and Everman “incestuous.”
Ultimately, OSBE opted to take control of the district and install a new superintendent at its July 2021 meeting. In the days that followed, Western Heights appointed an interim superintendent against state orders. Then-State Superintendent of Public Instruction Joy Hofmeister had assigned Monty Guthrie, a deputy superintendent of finance and federal programs at OSDE, to act as the district’s superintendent. The Western Heights board appointed its own interim superintendent, Kim Race, against Hofmeister’s orders.
According to Byrd’s new report, the presence of two competing superintendents “contributed directly to increased superintendent compensation and mounting legal expenses.” From July 2021 through December 2022, more than $1.1 million was spent on superintendent-related pay, according to the audit.
Weeks after Western Heights was placed on probation, the district and Barnes filed a lawsuit against OSDE, OSBE and Hofmeister. The lawsuit became a battle over OSBE’s control of the district and the suspension of Barnes, and it was ultimately jointly dismissed with prejudice in December 2022.
In a press release issued Thursday afternoon, which noted corrective actions the district has been taking, current Western Heights Superintendent Brayden Savage said the audit reinforces what OSDE said in 2021.
“Western Heights was suffering from serious mismanagement and organizational breakdown, not intentional wrongdoing. The district requires a full structural rebuild, and that is exactly what the current administration is doing,” Savage said. “The issues identified in this audit do not reflect the work, ethics or values of the current administration, the current board, or the hundreds of staff members who serve our students every day. Western Heights Public Schools in 2025 is not the same district as it was in 2020 or 2021.”
Auditors: Mannix Barnes’ appointment was negligent
The Western Heights board’s decision to name Barnes superintendent in the first place was “negligent,” according to Byrd’s report, which said Barnes was appointed superintendent July 1, 2019.
At the time, Barnes was an active member of the district’s school board, and he did not resign from the board until July 26, 2019. Any employment contract he signed before his resignation was void, according to the report. As such, Byrd’s office claimed that because they were not properly presented to the board, Barnes’ 2020 and 2021 contract renewals were also invalid — albeit lucrative. From Aug. 1, 2019, to Dec. 31, 2022 — when Barnes’ resignation became effective — Barnes received compensation of more than $1.13 million.
“Although the board voted in May 2020 and June 2021 to ‘continue the employment of Mannix Barnes as superintendent,’ it never formally approved any renewal contracts,” auditors wrote.
A response from the district included in the new report pushed back on the auditors’ findings. The district contends that the July 1 vote was to appoint Barnes superintendent “effective Aug. 1, 2019,” and that an employment contract was not entered into until that day.
“Barnes had resigned as a board member, and the contract was not void by operation of the provision of state law. The payments made to Barnes were based on a valid contract,” the district wrote.
The district also disputed the assertion that the contract renewals were invalid, arguing that state law allows a school district to employ a superintendent for the current fiscal year plus three additional fiscal years. Nonetheless, the press release from Byrd maintained that the payments made to Barnes while he was superintendent were improper owing to the lack of board-approved contracts.
Barnes did not return requests for comment to a phone number previously used to reach him.
The audit found that the district did not maintain proper inventory records. Four Chromebooks and two mobile hotspots were missing. Inventory records indicate the items were purchased with federal funds, checked out to students and never returned. A camera worth $130-$330, which had an asset tag, was not found in official inventory records. Additionally, seven equipment items totaling $703,823 were not recorded in inventory records, nor did they have asset tags affixed, according to the report. The audit dd not mention what sort of items racked up such a charged.
Even prior to the primary audit period, the district failed to file payroll tax reports with the Internal Revenue Service on time. The district faced $9,984.70 in penalties and fines in 2017 and $463,271.42 in 2018. As of Oct. 12, 2022, the district owed the same amounts for 2017 and 2018.
“Payments were apparently withheld at the advice of the district’s legal counsel,” auditors wrote.
The district has since negotiated a reduced payment and is current on its payments, according to the report.
Additionally, the district lacked internal controls to ensure employees were paid properly in accordance with their contracts, according to the report. Auditors tested 61 employees for payroll compliance, and 15 lacked contracts with properly authorized signatures. One contract could not be located. The auditors also found 16 overpayments and underpayments of at least $1,000. Auditors found that 11 employees were overpaid, totaling $46,951, and five were underpaid to the tune of $20,083.
“The majority of payroll discrepancies have gone unaddressed. Rather than taking immediate corrective action, the district chose to delay any resolution, opting instead to wait for the results of this audit,” auditors wrote.
The district took an average of 74 days to deposit reimbursement checks from employees who received payroll overpayments. The repayments were collected through payroll deductions on future paychecks, according to the report.
“The repayment checks were issued from the general fund and made payable back to the general fund,” auditors wrote. “One check was not deposited for 389 days, and another was never deposited. In fact, the checks never physically left the district’s custody, indicating that the delay was not due to external factors but rather to internal administrative oversight.”
Auditors also identified issues with purchasing and bid procedures, including two instances where district personnel completed “explanation for illegal purchase” forms after failing to properly encumber purchases before ordering the goods or services. Auditors also reviewed ten purchases subject to bidding requirements. The district did not produce documentation of the bidding process for five transactions that totaled $829,613.
“Effective budget management goes beyond tracking expenditures,” Byrd said. “It also requires thoughtful, transparent decision-making that prioritizes student learning and academic success.”
Read the full Western Heights audit
