The Weslaco school board voted 6-1 on Wednesday to accept the superintendent’s recommendation to terminate the contract of former Human Resources Director Melva Segura after an often tense meeting that lasted over five hours.
Andrew Gonzalez was the sole trustee on the board to vote against termination.
A long-awaited forensic audit released in September particularly criticized Segura’s role in the human resources department, along with the chain of events that preceded her coming into that role.
Segura was reassigned from her position at the head of the HR department to a post as a grant writer in March.
Later in September, with her termination appearing imminent, Segura filed a lawsuit at the district that temporarily protected her job.
Segura certainly had her day in court — at least her day in front of the board — and elected to hold her hearing in public. Tension then ensued.
The former HR director’s attorney, Ric Godinez, repeatedly menaced the board with the possibility of further legal action Tuesday, all the while nitpicking the investigation that precipitated Segura’s firing and decrying what he described as a politically motivated “fraudit.”
Godinez’s defense of Segura’s job was largely two-pronged: He cast doubt on many of the audit’s more salacious findings while criticizing the district for relying on it almost entirely rather than the whole of Segura’s career with the district.
Describing the report as easy to pick apart, Godinez portrayed his client as a diligent employee who’d served the district since the 1990s and now finds herself the victim of a politically motivated witch hunt.
“It just surprises me why anyone, even when politics is involved, would want to get rid of a resource like that,” he said. “There may have been some hanky panky going on in this school district. I don’t know; I really don’t know. That’s your job to find out; that’s why people elected you. But, as she said, y’all are kind of making her pay for the decisions of people above her.”
Godinez particularly focused on a portion of the audit report that said Segura may have violated nepotism policies regarding the district’s hiring of her son and daughter.
Segura couldn’t have committed any nepotism violations in her post, he repeatedly contended.
Godinez also railed against the audit’s description of her political involvement preceding her appointment to the head of the human resources department. Political involvement, he said, is a First Amendment right.
“Even though there’s nothing illegal about it — even if it is distasteful. It may be unethical,” Godinez said. “But it’s not against your policies, unless they’re related. It’s not against the law. But, to then use a report for that purpose, is against the law.”
A representative from Weaver and Tidwell, the firm that performed the audit investigation, stood by its findings.
The district’s attorney, Craig Wood, advised the board to make their decision based on that audit.
“What I would suggest to you is look at the Weaver report and the things it points out as facts, and corroborates with documentary evidence, exhibits, etcetera,” he said. “Look at what they say with respect to the facts they found concerning the performance of Ms. Segura and the HR department under Ms. Segura.”
Segura, for her part, largely laid the blame for irregularities and inefficiencies described in the audit report at the feet of individuals higher up the administrative food chain.
“I cannot answer for the decisions and the choices that others made,” she said.
The audit report was “fluffed” with personal opinions and biases unfavorable to Segura, she said, contending that portions of the report pertaining to specific hirings were taken out of context.
“Am I asked by principals and staff to get a feel of the board for their recommendation? Of course I am, those conversations happen all the time,” she said. “But that is never me trying to manipulate the process, that is me doing my job.”
Given those facts, Wood recommended following interim Superintendent Cris Valdez’s recommendation: termination.
Things were particularly tense between Godinez and Valdez.
Valdez’s testimony included a slideshow and a litany of reasons to fire Segura. She called information on hand only a sample of compelling evidence supporting Segura’s termination.
“In fact, in my research that I’m still conducting, I have uncovered other…,” Valdez said before Godinez cut her off, objecting to her bringing up facts discovered after September.
“I mean, the law is very clear that you have to give specific notice of the things that you’re complaining about,” he said. “And with all due respect to Dr. Valdez, she’s now trying to bring up things that she thinks she’ll find!”
Valdez repeatedly appeared to not be able to hear Godinez or to not be able to understand his questions.
At one point, grilling Valdez over whether she’d made her recommendation to terminate Segura’s contract on any documents in addition to the audit report, Godinez asked if Valdez had reviewed Segura’s personnel evaluations from the past two decades.
Valdez said she hadn’t reviewed those files — the district doesn’t have them.
“What happened to them?” Godinez said, seeming perplexed.
Valdez didn’t respond. After a moment, Wood, sitting facing Valdez and the board, shrugged.
Those evaluations, Godinez said, were stellar. He’d brought copies with him.
“You think that you, and an “independent” report that a school district pays $325,000 (for) that took nine months to complete, knows better than the people that evaluated and put in writing as the district requires on her evaluations?” Godinez said.
Wood, the district’s attorney, addressed those missing evaluations later in the hearing.
Wood said it would have in fact been possible for Segura to have removed those documents from her file herself, a suggestion Segura refuted.
He went on— a district employee, Wood said, recently reported to Valdez that they had been directed to go to the law offices of the late Fernando Saenz after his death to retrieve boxes of documents related to Segura’s employment and move them to a warehouse.
Things were also tense between Godinez and three trustees: Jackie Sustaita, Jesse Trevino and Marcos De Los Santos.
Trevino and Sustaita peppered Godinez with questions about lacking continuing legal education course hours that rendered him ineligible to practice law for some of the Segura suit’s proceedings.
Wood called that matter extraneous. Godinez characterized it as a pandemic-caused hiccup that had little pertinence on the evening’s business.
“I failed my own responsibility, and I didn’t do it, and I’m thankful I live in a country that believes in second chances,” Godinez said with a cheshire cat grin.
Godinez, for his part, repeatedly fingered those three newcomers to the board as driving the audit, saying they directed the “shape, form and object” of the investigation.
Those trustees, he claimed, accounted for some four-fifths of the calls between the board and Weaver.
Trevino described their involvement as due diligence and a search for the truth.
“We volunteered when they asked,” he said.
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