Rex Paying Political Consultants With Taxpayer Dollars
South Carolina’s “cash-strapped” Department of Education spent $358,398 on “consultants and contractors” during a three-and-a-half-week period ranging from February 6 to March 2 of this year, according to government records published on The Voice.
Technically referred to as “Non-State Education and Training Services,” these expenses include thousands of taxpayer dollars for Superintendent Jim Rex’s longtime political consultant, Zeke Stokes, as well as money for former Inez Tenenbaum political advisor Kay Packett.
Not surprisingly, none of these receipts provides any additional detail as to the nature of these taxpayer-funded expenses.
Assuming this amount represents an average expense over twenty-five days, Rex is spending $5.2 million a year on these “consultants and contractors.”
WEB EXTRA:
Complete Listing of Rex’s Consultant/ Contractor Expenses (The Voice)
Comments
By Xray on April 8th, 2009 at 12:26 pm
wow…all I can say is WOW!
By So What on April 8th, 2009 at 12:30 pm
so what, I believe all or most politicians do the same thing. How about your friend Eckstrom putting a political consultant on the payroll (RJ) – where is the transparency there? where was that press release?
just singling out Rex doesn’t make sense.
By fitsnews on April 8th, 2009 at 12:41 pm
“So what,”
A couple points …
1) Is Eckstrom bitching about his budget and using tax dollars to organize commie rallies for “stimulus” money? No, he is not.
2) The last time we checked RJ was Eckstrom’s official spokesman. Rex already has at least one of those on the taxpayer payroll … at $78,034 a year plus benefits. Our article was about expenses beyond Rex’s salaried PR staff.
3) The only reason we’re even getting a look at these expenses is thanks to Eckstrom’s website, so obviously the trifling pittance we’re paying our CG staff is worth something.
-FITS
By ORLY on April 8th, 2009 at 1:11 pm
good to know consultants are still spared from the cuts teachers will endure.
way to do it “for the kids” jim!
By True but on April 8th, 2009 at 1:45 pm
that’s nice Eckstrom has a new website but where is the transparency in the hire of a professional campaign consultant to basically serve as a public relations guy. transparency! transparency! for all the talk of transparency i haven’t seen the announcement of RJ working for Eckstrom yet!
By Jesse Sewell on April 8th, 2009 at 3:28 pm
Singling out Rex makes perfect sense. It further illustrates that electing the Education Secretary is dumb, pointless, does not serve the State in any constructive way. Just like asking Sherrifs and Coroners to run on a party ticket is pointless, dumb, etc.
How does having a party man running the Education Department serve the average child in his/her care? I think the answer is plainly obvious. Having an elected, party man gives you a Minister of Disinformation, as news is filtered through his office with a keen regard for any potential impact it might have on the State Party.
Thoroughly dumb, but oddly enough fitting, after all this is South Carolina. We like to do things our own way even if it is patently stupid. Like spending education tax dollars on political advisors.
By That's what I'm Sayin on April 8th, 2009 at 4:19 pm
That’s at least 8 teachers using the average of $44K a year for the teacher’s salary.
By Zeke Stokes on April 8th, 2009 at 4:25 pm
Will:
I can’t let your post today regarding my work with the State Department of Education go unanswered. It seems odd to see this attack coming from you, because you were a campaign employee of Governor Sanford who went on to work in the Governor’s office after your successful race. My situation is much the same.
I provide communications, development, and governmental consulting services for a variety of entities in South Carolina and around the country. Although some of that work is political, my client list also has included the South Carolina Campaign to Prevent Teen Pregnancy, Central South Carolina Habitat For Humanity, the Darfur Action Group of South Carolina, and yes, the South Carolina Department of Education.
My work at the South Carolina Department of Education is not political. Having worked for Inez Tenenbaum for a number of years, including as her Communications Director at the State Department of Education, I know a good deal about education policy and administration. In my current role as a consultant for the Department, I have helped to secure hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of free laptops for some of South Carolina’s most disadvantaged schools; helped author a bill to eliminate the PACT test in favor of a new and better test; helped to craft a comprehensive plan for changing the state’s system of financing our state’s public schools; and most recently, helped to navigate the difficult circumstances your former boss has created for our public schools by his refusal to accept federal stimulus dollars for public education. I could go on, but I think you get the point.
I believe in letting no attack go unanswered – especially one so clearly intended to use a tiny bit of information about me to unfairly smear the name of Jim Rex, a man who is working day and night to try to improve educational opportunities for our state’s children,
families, and communities.
In fairness to your readers, I hope you will print my response.
Regards,
Zeke Stokes
By Charles Sharpe on April 8th, 2009 at 4:48 pm
All I can say is “Where is Karen Floyd”
By fitsnews on April 8th, 2009 at 5:31 pm
Zeke-
We certainly appreciate you taking the time to respond.
-FITS
By Jeffrey Sewell on April 8th, 2009 at 5:42 pm
Damn my brother is a smart guy, and is my niece Alexa so why I get jacked in the intel department…
By Fashizzle on April 8th, 2009 at 7:54 pm
Zeke, your comment appears sincere and that is precisely the problem with government. Jim Rex already has 29 employees earning more than $90,000 a year. If these people are worth their salaries there is no justifiable reason to need outside consultants for anything but the most temporary and specialized of tasks. Only a person spending someone else’s money could share your view here.
By An Enquiring Mind on April 8th, 2009 at 8:29 pm
Fitsnews… Do you post on the Duke Basketball Report forums? If not, someone else is using the same disturbing avatar in their signature there!
By James the Foot Soldier on April 8th, 2009 at 9:22 pm
Mr. Stokes,
How about instead of sleek new laptops (these kids already know how to download 50 Cent) grab some money for chalkboards and chalk and have the students in those “disadvantaged” districts ‘rite and ‘rithmatic till their clothes are covered in chalk dust??
Furthermore, thank you for acknowledging your role in dismantling the PACT test – in favor of one not yet created – the perfect scheme for throwing money at even more educrat consultants.
Earth to educrat: it doesn’t take a new test to understand the education being provided in those “disadvantaged” districts SUCKS. Since 90% of education dollars are salaries guess what that means? The elephant in the room: the Superintendents/Principals/teachers in those districts are failures.
Here’s a novel idea – rather than waste money on your consultancy and new test consultancy and new laptops – direct that money to NEW TEACHERS (granted, this is a hard concept for morons in Columbia to follow) in those disadvantaged schools.
And another hard concept – if the teacher’s results for the year are ascertained to be substandard as evidenced by their student’s substandard test score – FIRE those teachers until you get some that know how to teach.
By RogueElephant on April 8th, 2009 at 9:34 pm
Please email me as to why my blog was refused. RL
By Todd on April 8th, 2009 at 9:38 pm
Consultants, advisors, administrators, mentors and supervisors have strangled the bureaucracy of the SC Education department. Just wander through the Rutledge Building or Richland Dist one offices. Rex, ‘fess up. Come clean. YOU ARE TOP HEAVY for no reason except politics.
By Really! on April 8th, 2009 at 11:07 pm
Zeke,
Comparing your situation to Will’s – or Rex’s situation to Sanford’s – is a total crock. Will went to work for the governor as a full-time state employee for a fraction of what are making as a part-time consultant. As a matter of fact, I don’t know of Sanford ever contracting with a consultant using taxpayer dollars. Campaign funds? Sure…public funds? No way – he has too much respect for the taxpayers.
If you want to help public education in this state, I’d suggest you give up your lucrative consulting career and go to work as a full-time employee for Rex OR be a volunteer for education or your political/non-profit cause like the rest of us do. It is really unbecoming to see you and all these other “consultants” enjoying huge contracts on our dime (actually many dimes) yet still get “holier than thou” when questioned about it.
And you could brag about ditching the PACT test if the state were going to MAP testing or something else standardized and cost-effecient. Instead, thanks to you and your candidate, the same company with the same consultant (Tompkins) gets the chance to develop yet another overly-expensive boondoggle of a test that only they can administer…and all because we have such “high standards” in SC that we can’t use the same tests other states do.
It should be criminal for the head of our school system to spend $360K of our funds on consultants in a year – much less a month. It provides further proof that we need to restructure government to eliminate all this duplication so we have one elected official responsible for everythign rather than another 8 constitutional officers doling out political patronage and trying to get “their” message out through consultants like you they hire with our money.
I agree with James and Fashizzle above…let’s dismantle the bureacracy and consultants who are there to constantly whine for more money and instead use our very substantial K-12 funds to hire more teachers to teach.
By Jim Ridgell on April 9th, 2009 at 5:05 am
Boy,
Kay Packett worked for Barbara Nielsen, her democrat successor Inez, and now she is getting education money from Rex.
Way to go Kay. You really are getting the education dollars!
By calhoun fawls on April 9th, 2009 at 5:08 am
I don’t know if paying Mr. Stokes or anyone on the list is justified. However, it does smack of hypocrisy that those crying so loud about such payments are the very people who stand up and take money and marching orders from narrow out of state interests. As I stated in other remarks, this seems like one band of paid for mouthpiece rascals calling the other side paid for rascals.
Let’s be clear. Neither side really cares about the average guy and his kids in school. It is all about being paid well to espouse an opinion that the guy writing the checks wants. It is couched in different language on each side, but the motivation is the same. It is all about getting the people’s money for the guy who paid the consultant to go get it.
Blame my loathing on fooling the people, from either side, on my loathing of magicians. For, that is all I see consultants on the right or left as, just masters of illusion to fool people. At least magicians claim to only entertain the people with their tricks to fool them. You guys offer another illusion in that you try to get people to think you really care about what happens to them.
When a group or consultant steps up and does not take one penny of out of state money to influence public opinion, then I will believe that they are sincere. Until then, Will, you are the pot calling Stokes, the kettle, black. You both are just playing the people and getting paid well for it.
By anonymous on April 9th, 2009 at 8:42 am
Sanford Shrugs His Shoulders At Specter Of Overcrowded Schools
VIDEO:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pgJ0t8KJaFI
By Earl Capps on April 9th, 2009 at 12:09 pm
Stokes’ talent of obfuscation is entertaining. He used eleventy kabillion words to respond, without even attempting to address the allegations – that a political operative is on the state’s payroll via DofEd.
The ability to spin and evade, while making counter-accusations and grabbing a bunch of children to use as credibility shields, is the hallmark of an accomplish BS arteest.
If he’s not a political operative, then perhaps he is willing to say that he has not worked for any political candidate during his course of employment, does not provide any political counsel for his current employer, and will promise that he will not work for any while employed in his current position?
That’s probably too much to ask, but he’s welcome to try to surprise me.
By BIN News Editorial Staff on April 9th, 2009 at 10:43 pm
“commie rallies”? sic(k) willie. Back off the rabbit tobacco.
It’s frying your brain!
Okay. Let’s get to the bottom of this.
As usual, sic(k) willie is full of prune pits and tripe. If there was anything to his weak knee’d suggestion of something wrong we would have seen an ethics complaint or a law suit. But no, nothing.
All we see is willie stirring up hi shit count.
(Sorry, “…his hit count.”)
Nothing illegal. Nothing unethical. Nothing but willie cr@p.
If there is anything at all worth attention in this pathetic string it’s the demand that someone come up with facts about how much RJ is getting paid with taxpayer dollars – and what are the taxpayers getting for it?
BIN News Editorial Staff
Flair and Balanced
By OldVeteran on April 10th, 2009 at 12:38 pm
Hello, If it is wrong it matters not who committed the wrong. We as a nation need to get back to doing what is correct (right) and not defend the wrong from anyone. If it was a mistake, then correct it and ensure it does not happen again. If the individual doing the wrong knew it was wrong then impeach them and remove them from office and take them to trial. If found guilty, put them in jail.
Intelligence does not reply on the amount of money each of us have, nor on how much we spend on the school children (laptops, Individual Educational Program – IEP for children who really are normal, but are labeled “special” in order to get more Federal Funding).
WE NEED TO GET OFF THE FEDERAL PAYROLL AND STAND AS AN INDEPENDENT STATE AGAIN:
Thank you.