Trustee sues Round Rock superintendent alleging unauthorized investigations

Round Rock school district Trustee Mary Bone has filed a lawsuit against Superintendent Hafedh Azaiez, alleging he has conducted unauthorized investigations into another board member using district funds. On Dec. 16, according to the lawsuit, the school board voted 4-2 to hire Waddell Serafino, a Dallas-based law firm, to review three sets of district emails that Trustee Danielle Weston had forwarded to decide whether further investigation was warranted to determine if sharing them had violated attorney-client privilege. Weston and Bone voted against the measure while Trustee Jun Xiao abstained. In the lawsuit, which was filed June 9, Bone alleges that she was given heavily redacted invoices for over $25,000 for an investigation labeled "RRISD investigation" that were approved by Azaiez and Trustee Amber Feller. In a Facebook post on June 9, Bone said additional invoices as of June 9 have brought the total cost to over $42,000.

"It appears from the invoices that Superintendent Azaiez has used the motion to hire an attorney in order to bypass review of whether 'further investigation is warranted,'" the lawsuit says. "Instead, he has proceeded to conduct an illegal investigation of Trustee Weston without seeking board approval." According to the suit, on May 4 Bone requested unredacted copies of the invoices but still has not received them. Bone said she filed the suit in the 425th District Court in Williamson County to have access to information needed to do her job as a trustee and to stop taxpayer money from being used unnecessarily. "The district administration continues to refuse to release this information to me as a trustee," Bone said in her Facebook post. "This is taxpayer money intended for the purpose of educating children. My goal for filing the lawsuit is to get the documents entitled to me and stop the misuse of taxpayer funds."