Questionable credit card spending by members of the East Side
Union High School District (ESUHSD) school board in San Jose did
not happen under the watch of former ESUHSD financial advisor and
current District 4 City Council candidate Doug Emerson, Emerson and
the district’s superintendent Esperanza Zendejas said Monday.
Hollister – Questionable credit card spending by members of the East Side Union High School District (ESUHSD) school board in San Jose did not happen under the watch of former ESUHSD financial advisor and current District 4 City Council candidate Doug Emerson, Emerson and the district’s superintendent Esperanza Zendejas said Monday.
While a report issued Thursday by the ESUHSD’s teachers’ union points to use of district-issued credit cards by some board members for personal expenditures, the spending in question took place before Emerson became the district’s financial advisor, he said. He was in the human resources department during the time of the “expenses for a few of the board members that were really questionable,” Emerson said.
“The majority of the expenses (in question) were prior to 2001, and some of them between 2001 and the summer of 2003. I wasn’t in charge of finance until October 2003 at the same time that the board voted to take away their (members in question) credit cards,” Emerson said.
Superintendent Zendejas confirmed Emerson did not join the financial department until October 2003. While Emerson did have a credit card at the time, he was not involved in any of the spending in question, she said.
However, Zendejas alleges Emerson did release confidential information regarding reports on the errant spending at a press conference last week, which he said he was not inclined to attend at first but later decided to go to because he “felt comfortable” divulging information regarding the reports.
Emerson, who retired from the District finance position in August 2004, counters Zendejas’s claim, saying he released only information from a deposition he prepared when the board was audited in 2003. While the deposition was confidential at one time, he said, it had been made public by a judge by the time of the press conference. According to Emerson, he told the public at the press conference he believed Zendejas had been trying to keep the financial reports confidential until after the Nov. election to protect Craig Mann, a board member whom Thursday’s report said abused his District-issued credit card.
“It’s really all politics that’s driving a lot of this,” Emerson said.
Superintendent Zendejas was not available for further response.
Jessica Quandt is a staff writer for the Free Lance. Reach her at 831-637-5566 ext. 330 or at [email protected].
