Corruption in Chicago's Dept of Ed during the final Arne Duncan years

[Hannah Bell]

As readers of the Chicago press now know, the Chicago Board of Education has — reluctantly — released the FY 2010 report of the Inspector General. A quick reading of the report shows that it's a hoot.

But the material that has been produced so far in the press (Sun-Times, January 4; Tribune, January 5, 2011) is just the tip of the iceberg, and may actually prove a distraction from the magnitude of the corruption at the top of CPS during the final years of Arne Duncan (and Rufus Williams) and the years of Ron Huberman (and Michael Scott, followed by Mary Richardson Lowry)...

(In March 2008, one year before he was to move in as U.S. Secretary of Education, Arne Duncan was expanding the CPS bureaucracy and privatizing public schools as quickly as he could. At the March 25, 2008, meeting of the Board...Duncan had just completed another round of "Renaissance 2010" school closings and was preparing to hand over additional schools for so-called "turnaround.")

Names are not named. And in an era when every Chief Area Officer (CAO) — most of whom are no longer experienced educators, but political hires, often from out of state — can harass principals and teachers, the scandal of CPS is that the corruption at the top is still being covered up as it is being exposed. Why?

The IG accurately reports that an "inappropriate tone at the top" led to much of the corruption uncovered during the investigations.

But an equally inappropriate tone in reporting these crimes (and several of them sound like crimes) in the Orwellian language of the IG's report itself simply adds to the public problem. The expose becomes a different kind of cover up.

Here is just a sample that hasn't appeared in print before today...

P-Cards (Procurement cards, basically CPS credit cards for use by administrators and Board members) were used for donations to various organizations contrary to the CPS Procurement Card Program Cardholder Manual.

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The article goes on to list items such as:

-- Various donations totaling at least $7500.00 to the City Club of Chicago for events.

-- A donation of $1,000 to a charter school fundraiser

-- An expenditure of $500.00 for a charitable board’s gala. A Board official sat on the board of this entity.

-- A $5,000.00 donation to a fraternity fundraising event. A Board official was a member of this fraternity.

-- A $1,000.00 expenditure for a golf outing held by a hospital’s foundation and a $3,000.00 expenditure for the hospital foundation’s annual gala and dinner dance. A booklet for the foundation’s annual fundraiser gala and dinner dance reflected that a Board official personally, and not the Board, was a Patron Sponsor - $3,000

-- Expenditures totaling $3500.00 for the purchase of gift cards for two recent CPS graduates who had come from foster homes and overcame tough circumstances.

-- A $3,000.00 expenditure made on behalf of a Board official and his wife to a children’s shelter organization annual gala.

-- A $1,000.00 donation to a university alumni association of which a Board staff person was a member.

-- A $1,875.00 expenditure for five tickets to a children’s disease foundation’s fundraising gala.

-- $10,473 in purchases by a Board office staffer for monthly Board meeting refreshments

-- $6,080 in 2008 refreshments & alcohol in sky box suites at Soldier Field

-- $12,624 for Board holiday parties at a Board official's house

-- $5333 for new artwork for a Board member's office (despite CPS's cache of artwork available)

In summary, the OIG found that when the Board finds that it has enough funding to feed itself and its staff on Board meeting days or to lavishly cater Soldier Field suites during football games, not to mention ignore P-Card and reimbursement rules and polices for which disciplinary action would be issued if CPS employees ignored such rules, the Board sends mixed messages to the whole of CPS.

On one hand, CPS departments and schools are being instructed to be fiscally responsible, to implement a hiring freeze, to endure unpaid holidays and the suspension of raises, and to find new ways to be fiscally creative to stretch funds.

On the other hand, the Board allows for double reimbursements, the purchase of alcohol with public funds, catered lunches, publicly funded holiday parties and other gratuitous expenditures.

The message that budget cuts need to be made and furlough days need to be taken rings hollow when the Board itself uses CPS funds irresponsibly. The Board’s failure to ensure that it, like the whole of CPS, tightens its belt only increases the frustration felt by the whole of CPS when continually called upon again and again to do more with less.

Although the Chicago Board of Education was quick to issue a succinct statement from Interim Chief Executive Officer Terry Mazany after it became clear that the Chicago Sun-Times was going to do a major report on the nearly 50 page report of the Inspector General (which had been around for several months, hidden from the public), it's clear that what the IG is reporting about corruption under Rufus Williams and Michael Scott (at the Board offices) and under Ron Huberman and Arne Duncan (in the administration) is just the tip of the iceberg.

Specifically, nothing in the IG report mentions the fact that since Huberman took over, the CEO (Huberman) routinely made major appointments in personnel at enormous salaries without reporting them through the public agendas of the Board and in Board Reports, as required...The cover up took place by stalling all Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests, with the help of Patrick Rocks and the CPS Law Department.

The hypocrisy came when Huberman began his "Chicken Little" claims about soaring budget deficits, while simultaneously cutting teachers while claiming he was cutting "administration."

Huberman even took that piece of his work to the Illinois General Assembly.

After claiming that the CPS "deficit" would be nearly a "billion dollars" (hyperbole, to say the least) and refusing to provide any actual numbers that could be reviewed, he then told Illinois Senate President John Cullerton that Chicago schools would not be able to open in September 2010 unless Cullerton approved the raid on the Chicago Teachers Pension Fund.

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[Hannah Bell]

1. Rufus Williams and Arne Duncan should at least say 'Thank You' for all the booze they put on our tab

It's been two years, and I still haven't gotten a thank-you note from Rufus Williams for helping to cover the $640 dinner tab he rang up at Table 52 on the Gold Coast back in January 2009.

Who knows? Maybe the former president of the Chicago Board of Education forgot about me. Or maybe he's still working on the note to thank me for pitching in for the food and booze — $6,000 worth —that he and his pals enjoyed in a Soldier Field skybox on September 6, 2008.

Of course, Rufus being Rufus, he probably finished writing and addressing my thank-you notes and then accidentally left them on the desk in that $979/night New York City hotel room that I helped him pay for.

On the other hand, maybe Rufus just decided to stiff me. Come to think of it, I never did get invited to those holiday bashes at his house back in 2006, 2007, and 2008. But being the sport I am, I still ended up kicking in my share of Rufus's $12,000 tab for those events.

Call me a fool, but I guess I have a soft spot in my heart for the folks that Mayor Daley picks to head the Board of Education. Why else would I have coughed up cash for Michael Scott's Olympic junket to Copenhagen in 2009?

And let's not forget about my generous contributions to all those charitable organizations that listed Michael or one of his family members as directors. That was just my way of trying to improve our city's schools while making life a little more comfortable for Mayor Daley's guys.

And let's also remember that Rufus cut his teeth as a CPA with Arthur Andersen. So when he told the Chicago Tribune that his "credit card use was fully proper," and insisted that each of his charges "related to our children and to our schools," what's not to believe?

If Rufus said taxpayers spent $6,000 for food and booze at Soldier Field so that he and his friends could discuss our schools, who are we to question him? After all, it's doubtful that we'll ever know what they actually talked about, because Board of Ed presidents generally have the skybox swept for listening devices right before kickoff.

The Board of Ed credit card. Don't leave home without it.

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