State Auditor & Inspector Cindy Byrd said an audit on Tulsa Public Schools’ bond department found more than $3.7 million misspent and mismanaged under executive director of bond and emergency management Chris Hudgins, who was charged in June.
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In a brief presentation Aug. 18 inside the Oklahoma State Capitol, auditor Byrd laid out her office’s investigation into about ten years of Hudgins’ more than two decades at the district in which he reportedly used his role to enrich his architectural firm, M&G Consulting.
“At the direction of the former bond director, the engineering firm submitted falsified invoices,” Byrd said. “And because the district had allowed the bond director to exercise almost unilateral control over vendor invoice review and payment authorization, their scheme was successful.”
A still active-investigation was announced in June when Attorney General Gentner Drummond and Tulsa County District Attorney Steve Kunzweiler alleged Hudgins orchestrated hundreds of thousands of tax dollars to his and his partners’ own engineering firms while roofing, HVAC, and other school improvement projects went unaccounted for…