I’m Down With O.C.G.A. § 50-18-70 and 71
Over the summer, someone filed an open records request with City Schools of Decatur (CSD) requesting copies of my email correspondence with school board members. Assuming CSD provided my emails, the requester would have received:
- March: Me asking the board to hold a referendum on funding a new preschool and stop being dismissive of public criticism, and the board ignoring me.
- May: Me criticizing the board for its inconsistent cost management and lack of due diligence regarding the new preschool, and board member James Herndon’s evasive recusal position. The board ignored me.
- May: Me asking if the board planned to present additional or modified preschool plans to residents. The board ignored me.
- May: Me asking the board to address recent in-school acts of antisemitism. The board ignored me.
- June: Me urging the board to suspend Superintendent Gyimah Whitaker pending an investigation into potential misconduct. This follows her decision to engage her husband’s media company to produce CSD’s podcasts, despite his use of those platforms to spew vulgar bigotry. When Mr. Whitaker sent his podcast associates to a CSD board meeting, the Superintendent ignored meeting rules and allowed them to speak, even though none were city residents. The board ignored me.
To the person who requested these emails: I apologize for burdening you with a grim summer reading list. It could have been grimmer though. Some of our high schoolers were assigned The Bell Jar.
Of course, I’m assuming CSD actually provided you with copies of these one-sided conversations. It’s very possible they didn’t. When I filed and open records request for Decatur’s P-card statements, CSD replied saying I had to pay them $918 first.
P-cards are charge cards given to employees for small, work-related purchases like software subscriptions, parking, coffee, and team-building meals. Decatur’s P-card program is managed by Superintendent Whitaker. She has authority over who gets the cards and if purchases are allowed. The rules:
I decided to review Decatur’s P-card transactions after I saw on open.ga.gov that the district spent $661,504 in fiscal year 2025 (July 2024–June 2025). CSD’s P-card spending per student is 65% higher than Buford’s and 86% higher than Marietta’s, the two metro Atlanta city school systems that Decatur often cites as peer districts.
Decatur spends way more than its peers and is less transparent. Buford has published every one of its P-card transactions on the state’s budget portal. Residents of Buford don’t have to guess how often their school system ordered from Chick-fil-A. It’s right there on the website. 36 times for $4,283.92. My pleasure.
Does spending more than other schools necessarily mean CSD is doing something wrong? No. But having spent a lot of my career at non-profits, including several that had to comply with government accounting procedures, $55,000/month being spent by regular employees on charge cards instead of by the finance department’s procurement and accounts payable team is worth investigating. I’m not saying anyone is stealing. I’m saying the doors and windows might be unlocked. The public deserves to see the details of CSD’s charges, free of charge.
Unfortunately, Decatur does not share its individual transactions. And it doubles down on opacity by categorizing more than 19% of its P-card spending as miscellaneous. That’s $126,272 of public money, spent by CSD, that it doesn’t even bother to categorize in public disclosures. Is it software? Is it mascot dry cleaning? Is it comedy T-shirts for Board Member Hans Utz? We don’t know.
How can nearly ⅕ of a city school district’s credit card spending be categorized as miscellaneous? To be clear, that’s 100% a criticism of CSD by me in the form of a rhetorical question. It’s also a literal question because they wanted to charge me $918 for the answer.
To see if I could get a glimpse into CSD’s P-card spending and management, while saving myself a little money, I revised my request in June. Instead of trying to get all of the charge records, I narrowed my ask to Superintendent Whitaker’s and communications director Mikkal Hart Murunga’s P-card statements. CSD replied I wasn’t allowed to see those charges right now because they’re part of a “personnel investigation.”
Is someone investigating Superintendent Whitaker’s management of the school system’s P-card program? Is this related to the Superintendent engaging her husband, Jason “Muslims are low-IQ goat f**kers and trans people do not exist” Whitaker, to produce CSD’s communications? Who is doing the investigating? When will we find out the results of this investigation? Area man would like to know.
In the meantime, why is Superintendent Whitaker allowed to manage a P-card system while CSD says her P-card transactions are part of an investigation?
And while I’m nagging, why is Whitaker still allowed to lead school board meetings when she let her husband’s weirdo podcast friends who don’t even live in Decatur speak at the last board meeting, even though the board’s rules limit public comment at meetings to Decatur’s local weirdos?
We deserve answers to all of these questions. In fact, we could have them as soon as this week. All we need is just one of Superintendent Whitaker’s friends on the school board, Carmen Sulton, James Herndon and Hans Utz, to remember that their duty is to us, not her.
If you live in City of Decatur, consider emailing the board to ask them to hold the Superintendent accountable for entangling our schools with her husband’s politics, share the scope and timeline of any investigation, and just generally stop being so annoyed when the public asks you to do a job that no one is actually forcing you to do. If you do write to the board, your email will become part of the public record and you, too could end up on someone’s sad reading list.
(Decatur, Buford, and Marietta FY25 P-card records, plus copies of my open records email exchanges are on this Google Drive)
#CitySchoolsOfDecatur #Decatur