Jackson Jambalaya

"Does anyone believe this statement?" Oh yeah, I do. Like I believe Covid will end mankind.

I read the letter MDE sent to Pickering. But according to the Kingfish post yesterday, these dates don't add up. MDE didn't even begin looking at ANYTHING until AFTER the Auditor's office called them out AND gave the evidence to the Feds.

MDE is a joke.

HAHAHA, this is hilarious. So Shad got the tip from MDE and he is acting like HE found this crap. Typical, 130 pound lite weight getting pimped slap by Carey Wright. I don't like her but she is a grizzled old hag that looks like to me she would whip Shad's ass in a street fight.

9:55, go back to your desk at MDE, and try to earn at least part of your pay and ridiculously lucrative retirement.

I'm willing to bet Dr.Wright is more involved then, has come out so far. These women is fighting and arguing over a man. It will all unfold..

9:42AM says MDE didn't begin looking at it until after MDE had received word from State Auditor.

9:55AM says MDE tipped off the State Auditor.

Who's on first???

"Former employee"?? It was the FORMER DIRECTOR!! Minimizing this breach of public trust only undermines the agency's credibility further.

Good point by 9:42, which may explain why Carey Wright was so angry that she was notified first about the last action by the state auditor - she didn't have a chance to get out in front of it and claim that MDE was actually policing itself.

If you don't believe her, read the letter she sent Stacey, here:

Letter Sent to Auditor

Does anyone believe anything Carey Wright says?

“Former employee"?? It was the FORMER DIRECTOR!!”

No. She wasn’t. She was the director of Educator Quality. About 4 stops below on the org chart.

Talk about something you know about, like Taco Bell or “diabeetus” dum-dum.

Looks like a legitimate letter, KF. In the well-worn words of many others, "I believe her..."

Thanks 11:52. Finally some evidence instead of all these opinions. It must be awesome to work for private companies where no one steals and if they do it is the CEOs fault.

11:52. Echoing 1:42.

With the way some posters react, it makes me think Shad ran off with someone's woman.

11:52 - OFF THE TOP ROPE!

As usual, the little sawed of runt sunuvabitch gets his grandstanding narrow ass exposed.

Attn 11:52 THANK YOU for those excellent words of wisdom!!

Not going to name anyone . . . but anal sphincter muscles are getting tighter by the day . . . over at the Education Agency.

11:52 here.

Here’s a better copy.

I’ll wait for everyone who was a sanctimonious dick to bow out gracefully and admit they were wrong. I’m not a Wright fan. But she’s not directly to blame. She played this by the book. Judge her by the actual screw ups.

Turn out the lights before you leave.

“Former employee"?? It was the FORMER DIRECTOR!! No. She wasn’t. She was the director of Educator Quality. About 4 stops below on the org chart."

Not so fast General! You think you can minimize her status by not capitalizing the title? She was a Director, not simply a 'former employee'. One of only a few.

Are you suggesting there are four positions in the chain of command that are superior to the pay grade of Director? I suggest you're a liar. This agency has always been rife with re-treads, district rejects, failed principals, incompetent leadership and others who could not make it in the trenches. Many of them learned the art of financial manipulation at the district level.

Nobody has claimed she was the Superintendent or that that level was involved (yet). The Director in any state agency is mighty high up in the Org Chart. If it were not, the fraud could not have occurred. Get back to your typing duties and visions of PERS.

We can see straight through Wright's 2017 letter, linked twice above by the same person (probably Wright, herself). The letter is obviously an attempt at grandstanding. Her investigative-sniffing was negligent and only began after PEER released some instructional document? Where were her internal auditors prior to that? Why did she need to be prompted to 'task' somebody to look at the activities of an employee she had fired?

I guess we could sit around asking whether Pickering was on the golf course with Rudy Warnock instead of in the wheelhouse to which he was elected. But, that's water under the bridge. I'd rather ask why Wright (or somebody at MDE) didn't investigate a departing Lieutenant General prior to October of 2017.

Somebody needs to conduct a forensic audit of all the hard-drives Wright has had personal access too, including subpoena of her personal devices and emails. All roads will lead to Rome. What we have here...is a total lack of institutional control. If she were a multi million dollar football coach, instead of simply the highest paid Superintendent in the country, she would have been fired several years ago.

The auditor's compliance report dated September 2017, a month prior to Dr Wright's letter, has detail in the findings related to Kyles Company. The auditor's staff alerted this issue, which ultimately led to the federal investigation and indictments. MDE's October 2017 letter is a CYA after the fact. If MDE didn't have shotty processes over contract procurements, this wouldn't have happened.

To Sept, 4 @ 12:27 p.m.: Here's an excerpt from the press release from U.S. Attorney's Office that is prosecuting the "former employee": "According to the indictment, Cerissa Neal was the Executive Director of the Mississippi Department of Education during 2013-2016 . . . "

https://www.justice.gov/usao-sdms/pr/former-executive-director-and-three-contractors-mississippi-department-education

If DOJ got it wrong, maybe you could notify the feds and see how far that gets you.

Except Wright created a culture of sweetheart dealing at MDE. She split up numerous contracts for the same reasons as documented in earlier posts.

" Except Wright created a culture of sweetheart dealing at MDE "

THANK YOU Kingfish !

I find it curious that all posts in favor of Carey Wright, except one, were posted during regular business hours. The one exception posted a link to a letter from Carey Wright.

I seem to recall someone mentioning the 'sphincter factor' earlier. It took the feds three years of clinical forensics to reach the point of indictment of Neal. Let's give it another ten months for a higher level indictment.

Somebody needs to look into a particular community college regarding their buying all new laptops for 150+ faculty. These are to replace every computer in the school, which are perfectly fine, and aren't even needed. Probably some Covid money going to something disguised as Covid related, but complete and utter bullshit. Get on it Shadrach. As a taxpayer it smells to high heaven. Talk about lack of institutional controls.

7:14 If the administration if forcing faculty to tech classes from home (via Zoom, etc) they may need to provide portable computers for this that don't have one.

@9:14am

Operational word of "forcing" is true, and "may need" is appropriate because it's more likely that they don't need one, than they do.

An overwhelming number of students have said in surveys that they HATE online learning, and especially the unreliable Zoom. Some have said, "I'm not learning a fucking thing. It's a total sham." But the administration keeps driving the narrative that that's what the students want. Not. True. In. The. Least.

Colleges are churning numbers to prop up the bureaucracy with obscene salaries at the top to be paid, athletics to subsidize, and keeping the appearance that they are "on the move and growing", but there ain't no education going on, and community relationships with students and families are rapidly deteriorating....all in the name of protecting a small number of egos at the top simply looking for their next higher office.

And guess what? Those Career Tech numbers ain't happening no matter how often they say there's a huge demand for it. You can get those skills in high school like they used to. College is a total scam right now.

Curious how the state with one of the worst public school systems in the country and one of the lowest cost of living rates has the highest paid Superintendent.

She gets paid to break every rule possible, cover for everyone, and keep the gravy flowing until the Feds come calling. Then she'll retire to spend more time with her family. Mississippi leaders will smile, and say, "Next". And the corruption marches on.