Dora Sauceda, the DISD Executive Accused of Faking Her Moving Expenses, Has Resigned

Several things emerged from the internal Dallas ISD audit the Morning News got its hands on earlier this week. One was that Superintendent Mike Miles didn’t hesitate to bend or break established protocol when he was assembling his leadership team. Another was that DISD really didn’t want the report to be released, as indicated by its repeated insistence that it was merely a “draft.”

Then there was the tidbit that one of those new leaders had the churtzpah to submit a fake receipt for moving expenses.

The News dug a bit to find that the employee in question was Dora Sauceda, who had been hired in July as an executive director overseeing a dozen schools in the Pinkston feeder pattern, and that she had submitted an invoice from C&W Moving Company to cover her move from Brownsville.

That company either doesn’t exist — it’s not registered with the Texas Secretary State of the Texas Department of Motor Vehicles, according to the News — or it keeps a very low profile, operating from the home address of Sauceda’s brother-in-law. District employees raised red flags, but higher-ups ordered the invoice paid anyways.

All of that is a prelude to today, when, according to the News, Sauceda abruptly resigned and repaid the district for the apparently fraudulent invoice. We’re awaiting confirmation from DISD.

Not only does the resignation leave him with a key leader of a part of the district, the Pinkston feeder pattern, that he has targeted for reform, it also undermines his claim that the audit revealed nothing unethical or illegal.