One point has largely escaped notice in the debate over Houston ISD's future: The district hasn't had an independent, comprehensive performance review in 20 years.

No outsider has been hired to come in and take a good look at HISD's books since then-state Comptroller John Sharp came to town in 1995 as part of his Texas School Performance Review.

Such an audit seems vital right now with Superintendent Richard Carranza and leaders on the school board pushing for drastic reforms that reinvent everything from the district's management structure to its celebrated magnet programs.

You'd think somebody would have recommended such a review before declaring revolution and announcing sky-is-falling budget cuts to cover a $200 million-plus budget shortfall.

Actually, someone did.

COMMUNITY UPROAR: Hundreds criticize plan to close schools

Last June, then-Trustee Mike Lunceford, a board veteran who had represented Bellaire and other parts of southwest Houston, recommended that the district hire the state's respected Legislative Budget Board to conduct an independent review to help identify possible savings and efficiencies.

"We struggle with this, both the administration and the board," Lunceford told his colleagues at the June 22 budget meeting. "And we need a third party to come in and determine what we're doing well," and what the district wasn't doing so well.

"It's not going to help us today," he said. "But it will help us in the future to be a better district."

Lunceford explained that the audit would take about six months to finishand that the state would cover 75 percent of the cost.

Wanda Adams, then board president, expressed her support: "We just need to deep-dive. We just need a third party for that."

Only Trustee Jolanda Jones spoke out against the idea, saying the district couldn't trust the state to be fair.

"Are we smoking crack?" she asked her colleagues, adding that she'd rather spend the 25 percent the district would have to pay for the audit on teacher raises.

Nevertheless, the board approved the item by an 8-1 vote. And when Adams asked Lunceford when he'd like to get things moving on it, he replied, "Yesterday."

"We were going to be in a bind in a year," Lunceford told me this week, recounting his motivation for seeking the audit. "We were going to need to show the taxpayers that we have been responsible." And he hoped the review would turn up some savings that could help the district avoid severe cuts that schools are being told to implement now.

Auditing the state's largest school district, with a budget approaching $2 billion, is no small feat. Sharp's took 50 auditors and cost about $800,000, former Trustee Donald McAdams wrote in his book, "Fighting to Save Our Urban Schools … and Winning: Lessons from Houston."

With great fanfare, Sharp had announced his intention of rooting out waste, increasing revenue and fine-tuning operations, with the goal of improving district performance for students and ensuring that taxpayer money was being spent wisely.

RADICAL PLAN: Carranza's ideas violate Houston ISD's own policies

The auditors collected input during well-attended town hall meetings, complete with giant flip charts for teachers, parents and community members to write recommendations. Auditors not only reviewed mounds of data, but met with 28 focus groups, including district superintendents, teachers, and groups representing parents, elected officials, civic leaders, members of academia - even labor employment agencies.

Goring sacred cows

The review produced a 663-page report containing 228 recommendations intended to net $70 million in savings, a relatively small but notable sum, McAdams wrote.

No, Sharp didn't find mountains of waste. But, according to McAdams, the audit led to changes in curriculum management and instructional training and pointed out a few sacred cows that most insiders wouldn't dare touch, such as board members meddling in staffing decisions and micromanaging schools.

Just six months out, under the leadership of then-Superintendent Rod Paige, 88 percent of the recommendations had been implemented or were in the process of being put in place.

At that time, there seemed to be an openness and a willingness to acknowledge flaws and make improvements.

Today, I'm not so sure.

In August, a couple months after the HISD board had already approved Lunceford's motion for an LBB audit, board members brought the item up again - at a meeting when Lunceford and another supportive board member, Anna Eastman, happened to be absent.

All members present, including Adams, the president, voted to kill Lunceford's approved item.

FAILING SCHOOLS: Changes target 15 low-performing campuses

Jones explained why:

"TEA is our enemy," she said, referring to the Texas Education Agency, which provides some regulation of public schools. "They are trying to destroy public education in Texas. I have fought against TEA when other people on the board have not. I don't know why we would let people who want to take over us, look over our books and judge us. … I don't know why we're playing footsies with the enemy of public education and our kids."

Asked if he had a recommendation, Carranza said no. "It's a board decision," he said.

Jones makes a valid point that some legislative leaders, including Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, seem hell-bent on undermining public education, in part by starving them of funding and trying to siphon money to private programs.

Nonpartisan approach

But the LBB, not the TEA, would have overseen the audit. The LBB, much like the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, is a joint committee of the Legislature made up of really smart wonks who regularly make tough, sometimes unpopular budget and policy recommendations and fiscal analyses for lawmakers who don't always listen.

I asked Adams why she changed her vote. She said she's still supportive of an independent audit but just didn't want the LBB to do it, citing the state's threats to take over the board due to low-performing schools. Under a new state law, the district faces a potential state takeover if even one of 10 chronically low-performing schools doesn't meet state standards this year.

"Nobody's against it," Adams said of the audit. "It's just who we wanted to do it. I need to know where the bodies are buried, where we're double-spending, where we need to reconfigure services or combine departments."

MAGNET SCHOOLS: How do Houston ISD's work?

She said she asked Carranza to take the lead on the audit.

"I put it in the superintendent's hand. I'm just waiting for him to do it," she said. "We need to be able to hurry up and do it because we're in a serious situation."

Yes we are. This audit should have been approved months ago. And the reason it wasn't - that the LBB can't be trusted - doesn't hold water.

HISD needs help getting out of this hole, which is largely of its own making. Robbing strong principals of autonomy and raiding strong programs, as Carranza has suggested, is not a smart strategy. Identifying the weak spots, and taking action, is.

The LBB is not the enemy. Nor are transparency and fresh perspective.

In light of the situation, they may be the best friend we've got.