This is too good. This is not only a report of fraud, but just dumb government spending of taxpayer funds. We focus not only on government agency fraud but mis-management, and it is clear that the Chicago School District is getting too much income
It seems the Chicago School District's Inspector General received 1,012 complaints about waste, fraud and mismanagement regarding the Chicago School District. In one of them, a Chicago School District manager went out and paid $70,000 for 30 espresso machines for work-school programs in high schools, and five months after the purchase, 22 of them were still unpacked and in the boxes. Additionally, the managers involved bypassed purchasing controls to avoid required approvals, and thus also overpaid $12,000 for the machines.
The article below also lists some other Chicago School District fiscal blunders, and they get the FiscalRangers.com Fiscal Fiasco award for the week! You can visit the Chicago School District Inspector General's webpage HERE and download their 2008 annual report which contains more details on all the fiascos.
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Favorite quotes about Chicago and the School District mis-management
In its FY 06 Annual Report, the OIG reported on an investigation which revealed
that during a five-year period, a CPS employee wrote 319 school checks to
herself. The checks, totaling $456,554.67, were cashed by the employee or
deposited into her personal bank account. The employee resigned during the
course of the investigation and the matter was subsequently referred for criminal
prosecution. In FY 07, the employee plead guilty in criminal court and began
paying restitution. In FY 08, the former employee was sentenced to four years in
prison after having paid $78,000 in restitution to CPS.
This is the article from the Chicago Tribune:
chicagotribune.com
Chicago schools' espresso machines a waste of money, inspector reports
District overpaid; many go unused
By Carlos Sadovi
Tribune reporter
January 7, 2009
One Chicago Public Schools manager must have really been jonesing for a cup of coffee when officials say she spent nearly $70,000 of the district's money to buy 30 cappuccino/espresso machines for a high school program.
But five months after the machines were purchased, 22 remained unopened, one disappeared and three were being used at two schools—though not in the culinary arts program for which they were intended, the district's inspector general said Tuesday.
Officials in a department dealing with work-school programs allegedly separated the purchases to make them appear they came from 21 different schools and were under $10,000.
By doing so, the purchases did not have to be competitively bid or win school board approval, said Jim Sullivan, the district's inspector general.
As a result, he said, the district overpaid for the coffeemakers by more than $12,000.
"They sat unused for a number of months . . . by not letting the schools know they were coming, it turned out at the time to be a waste of money," Sullivan said.
The cappuccino caper was one of a record number of cases tackled between July 2007 and June 2008, Sullivan said.
The inspector general's office had 1,012 complaints alleging misconduct, waste, fraud and financial mismanagement in the district. Of these, 940 cases were closed with many resulting in recommendations for termination and some for criminal prosecution.
Following the investigation, the district has set up clearer guidelines to let school officials know that "stringing" purchases together is not allowed. A manager who oversaw the high school program and was involved in overseeing the cappuccino purchases has since resigned, but officials said it was a different employee than the one who did the purchasing.
Sullivan also said the district is trying to discipline two staff members at Rachel Carson Elementary School accused of falsifying records and using clout to get their children into the school despite designated attendance boundaries.
Three other employees since have resigned, Sullivan said.
The district ended up spending about $252,000 a year to bus as many as three dozen children to other schools when Carson, which at the time was their neighborhood school, filled up. Since then, the district changed the school to allow open enrollment across the city.
The inspector general's annual report also noted the district is trying to recoup nearly $460,000 in tuition from parents of students who attended the district but lived in the suburbs, Sullivan said.
