Dallas.org Brings the Heat on DISD Per Diems

Three things about Allen Gwinn’s latest database:

1) His intro makes it sound like per diems, by their very nature, are evil. They aren’t. The idea behind them is that by setting a standard amount for a day’s travel, and by giving that amount to an employee — no questions asked nor accounting done — you actually save money by not having to pay someone to review expense reports and so forth. It’s a sound idea.

2) With DISD’s total budget of $1.16 billion, $1 million worth of per diems in a year doesn’t strike me as unreasonable.

3) The thing to do is start at the top of the list. Some of these people are recruiters. Makes sense that they’d have high totals. Their job is to be on the road, convincing people to come work for the district. But the No. 1 receiver of per diems is a teacher at one of the magnets. Perhaps there’s a good reason why Dionicio Gonzalez got $21,060 in a single school year. I’d like to hear it. But if Gwinn is correct in saying that a DISD per diem is $36 per day, that means Gonzalez was on the road last year 585 days.