COO of HISD found guilty
Accountability is important in all public sectors, especially school districts. I have closely followed the HISD trial against former district vendor Anthony Hutchison and Chief Operating Officer Brian Busby. After a month of deliberations, both men were found guilty of committing fraud through bribery, false tax returns, witness tampering, and overbilling.
On July 28, U.S. District Judge Andrew Hanen will formally sentence Hutchison and Busby. They face decades in jail.
Douglas Williams, who is FBI Houston’s special agent in charge, said Busby and Hutchison “defrauded” the largest public school system and taxpayers in Texas out of millions of dollars that could have benefited HISD students.
This case highlighted the importance of accountability from people in positions of power and raised questions about monetary oversight at the school district.
Although HISD already has an Office of Budgeting and Financial Planning in place for oversight, other lapses have occurred. Earlier this year, the board of managers retroactively approved cooperative vendor awards spanning 16 months, totaling up to $870 million. Superintendent Mike Miles admitted that his administration did not get prior board approval for the contracts and called it a “good faith error” with no “mal intent.”
Until a more robust system is in place, a pertinent question remains: How will HISD provide such oversight in the future?
Houston’s drainage lawsuit comes to an end
After years of neglecting its own rules, Houston is finally being forced to pay up—and the city’s drainage system might actually benefit. Two engineers filed a lawsuit against the city for not allocating enough property tax revenue to the Dedicated Drainage and Street Renewal Fund (DDSRF), and in January, the Texas Supreme Court agreed. The ruling? Clear as Houston floodwater: the city must resume setting aside drainage money as required.
That one decision just made Houston’s already-strained budget a whole lot messier. The city owed an additional $100 million in flood mitigation funding, pushing its deficit from $220 million to well over $300 million.
Let’s rewind. Back in 2010, voters passed a charter amendment to fix streets and drainage. Had the city followed that ordinance, we’d have a $420 million fund ready to tackle everything from potholes to post-storm backups. Instead, the can was kicked down the road, and now it’s come back with interest.
Mayor John Whitmire is trying to clean up the mess with a payment plan: $16 million this year, $48 million in 2026, and the rest by 2028. The plaintiffs seem on board, but not everyone is sold. Councilmembers Amy Peck and Edward Pollard are raising valid questions: With Houston’s current financial strain, could the city allocate the said amounts to the drainage funds?
As budget season heats up, one thing is clear: the city’s bookkeeping is under the microscope, and Houstonians should be watching closely. After all, it shouldn’t take a lawsuit to make sure our streets don’t turn into rivers every time it rains.
Sinners taking reviews by storm
Everyone is raving about Ryan Coogler’s 2025 film Sinners. The genre-defying Southern Gothic vampire epic combines supernatural horror with social commentary and has made $48 million at the domestic box office and $63 million worldwide. In short, it has been a very good week for the Sinners team.
Variety reported that nearly 40% of the initial ticket buyers were Black, 35% were white, 18% were Hispanic and 5% were Asian, suggesting a diverse pool of moviegoers.
Some headlines got flak for undermining the film’s win by pointing out that it’s still in the red with it’s $90 million-plus budget. But this is not the only thing people are discussing.
It just so happens that Coogler struck a deal with Warner Bros. studios, securing first-dollar gross points, final cut and ownership of Sinners 25 years after its release. The film was in a bidding war with studios until Warner Bros. agreed.
In an interview with Business Insider, Coogler explained that his decision was not a strategic power move because of his billion-dollar box office track record but rather a symbolic gesture.
“That was the only motivation,” he told Business Insider.
Coogler also told Indiewire that he would not necessarily ask for rights to future films, but Sinners is different. It’s about twin brothers, Smoke and Stack—both portrayed by Michael B. Jordan, who start their business in a sharecropping community set in Jim Crow-era Mississippi.Maybe to Coogler, ownership was not just about profit but a way to choose how he is remembered. His deal may be a sign of a shift in the entertainment industry. In a way, he said, “ownership is power.”
