During the Tuesday afternoon meeting of the Hamilton Southeastern School Board Budget & Finance Committee, school district Chief Financial Officer Katy Dowling voiced concerns that the Vice President of Bondry Consulting had done campaign work for a current member of the HSE School Board. The committee was considering a contract proposal from Bondry.
Oscar Gutierrez, President of Bondry Consulting, issued a statement Wednesday saying “the implications that Bondry was chosen as a finalist due to political contributions instead of professional expertise is factually incorrect.”
“In 2020 and prior to employment with Bondry, a non-equity employee via his own business performed a media-related paid service for a campaign of an HSE school board member,” said Guitierrez in the written statement. “This is a coincidence that he provided a paid service through his company prior to working with Bondry.”
Gutierrez was the first controller and CFO for the City of Fishers and Hamilton County is currently a client of Bondry.
Here is the full statement issued by Oscar Gutierrez:
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Bondry Consulting is an SEC and MSRB-registered entity that is bound by fiduciary duty to it’s clients and regulated regarding pollical contributions. Bondry follows all obligations set forth by federal securities law.
The implications that Bondry was chosen as a finalist due to political contributions instead of professional expertise is factually incorrect.
In 2020 and prior to employment with Bondry, a non-equity employee via his own business performed a media-related paid service for a campaign of an HSE school board member. This is a coincidence that he provided a paid service through his company prior to working with Bondry.
Bondry’s Qualifications:
The Contract was to be headed by Oscar Gutierrez, who has Served in similar roles as Controller and Deputy Mayor of the City of Lawrence, and Controller and CFO of the City of Fishers. During his time in Fishers, the City had one of the lowest tax rates of similar cities and the only AAA credit rating in the state of Indiana by standard and poor’s. His current clients include Hamilton County who has the 6th lowest tax rate in the state of Indiana for Indiana counties, the lowest tax rate of the largest 10 counties in Indiana, and the only AAA credit rating by standard and poor’s in the state.
Bondry is the state’s sole Minority and Veteran owned municipal advisory firm.
It’s obviously disappointing that the CFO would attempt to discredit our qualifications by implying that a staff member’s non-relevant work prior to joining our firm would be a reason for Bondry to be blocked from a professional municipal finance contract.
This is a disappointing statement. The fact is that many in the community made that connection and were concerned about a conflict. And the Board member involved not addressing it directly in that meeting raised more questions. It was perfectly reasonable to raise this question.
However, the bigger question is why the Board is attempting to bring in an outside consultant when it’s clear the CFO hasn’t asked for that. Either the Board doesn’t trust the CFO, or they are bringing them in, as one Board member stated, to explain budgets to the Board members. If that’s the case, then the taxpayers shouldn’t be paying for a tutor for the Board. And nothing good will come from forcing a consultant on admin when admin doesn’t believe it’s worthwhile.
If the Board really does trust our CFO, as Ben Orr said he does at the meeting, then they should immediately vote to extend her contract and let her do her job, instead of wasting more money to replicate work that is already being done by our district employees.
If you watch the school board meetings, there is clearly friction between board members and the CFO. Orr specifically seems to want to micromanage or maybe he is just a super skeptic, but he also seems to be ill prepared and ignorant to the intricacies of large organizational finance.
My understanding is there was no RFP for these services, so how could Bondry be a finalist? Additionally, the school board member who hired their VP for work on her campaign acted like she had no idea what the CFO was talking about. The Bondry proposal was requested with no public discussion (a board member claimed they offered and weren’t asked, but the Bondry presentation thanks them for requesting a proposal). The issue is the HSE school board majority, not Bondry. The lack of transparency and closed door discussions causes the community to make connections and assumptions.
Chosen as a finalist?
How quickly is this message going to make it to Luke for yet another open-door violation complaint?
Not revealing a conflict of interest discredits the board member not the company.
This whole deal lacks so much transparency and raises a lot of questions.
The jab at our CFO was unnecessary.
GREAT JOB, Fishers!
Run off John Green.
Run off Black superindendent.
Run off Hispanic Business on Hispanic Heritage month.
Well. Done.
Oscar didn’t specify that it was the Vice President of his company that provided a $1,300 in-kind donation to the board member, not just a staff member and not a small amount of work. Oscar also didn’t address how he and Suzanne Thomas ended up sitting next to each other recently at a school finance meeting and then his business being offered an exclusive opportunity via the school board, which no other companies received.
All people are seeking is transparency (which was a key platform of this board), and when semantics and diversion are used to imply others are raising a stink over nothing, it is not a good look for the board or service provider.
100 percent what happens when you elect people with little aptitude nor interest in running public education, with their only interest being national political issues. This board looks like the dog that caught the car. They seem so put off that the actual job of running a school system has gotten in the way of their orange crusade to stop wokeness and eliminate free thought.