CHICAGO – Public school personnel plundered the riches of virus relief, preyed on students, and pleaded poverty so their children could eat free lunches, according to Inspector General Will Fletcher.
His annual report for fiscal year 2022 reflected a culture that often assigned greater value to adults than to students.
He found the district received $1.5 billion for virus relief and spent 77% of it on employee salaries and benefits.
He found the board allocated $178 million of virus relief for instructional positions and the rest for student reengagement, school openings, and program investments.
Regardless of the district’s characterizations, most of the relief took the form of payments to employees.
Fletcher stated he’d ramp up efforts to monitor waste and abuse as the district spends its remaining $1.5 billion in virus relief funds.
Among his findings:
The district spent large amounts on extended day pay for teacher union members, overtime pay for other workers, and stipends for both groups. These forms of extra pay increased 74 percent in five years.
Neither budget nor payroll staff could calculate how much extended day pay, overtime pay, and stipend pay was funded with virus relief money.
Excessive extra pay could be a red flag to fraud, unequal or unfair opportunities, or a sign that an additional position should be opened.
“But first, to assess all this, Chicago Public Schools needs to better monitor extra pay,” Fletcher wrote.
No systematic monitoring of excessive extra pay over extended periods.
Fletcher described abuses from 2019 to 2021:
Some timesheets bore a principal’s stamp rather than a signature.
No timesheets existed for some payments and some mysteriously disappeared during his investigations.
Employees clocked in and out for other employees.
Some schools lacked cameras to monitor time clocks and a clerk at one such school received more than $100,000 in extra pay in five years.
An employee received nearly $150,000 in extra pay from simultaneous jobs and spent some of the hours he charged to the district at a casino.
A clerk received more than $15,000 by using the principal’s password and approving extra pay.
Stipends jumped from $8.5 million in 2019 to $28.9 million in 2021.
Guidelines to explain who was eligible or under what circumstances were missing.
Guidelines to determine or verify payments were missing.
Rules for all extra payments were scattered across locations in various formats, many with links and even with links embedded in links.
Seven of 20 random employees with more than 50 hours of extra pay from July to December 2021 weren’t adequately supported by time clocks.
The payroll department didn’t identify employees who accumulated hours from multiple pay codes in a single pay period.
The department didn’t identify schools or departments with unusual hours or analyze excessive hours of individuals.
The audit department crafted corrective action plans but hadn’t monitored their implementation for at least four years.
The district promised corrective actions last November but left several areas of concern unaddressed.
Fletcher devoted most of his report to investigations of sexual allegations by a special unit the school board created in 2018.
A team of 30 staffers handles hundreds of allegations per year.
They substantiated 302 policy violations and prosecutors filed at least 16 criminal charges.
Some investigations didn’t substantiate sexual misconduct but substantiated other misconduct deserving termination or discipline.
Several individuals under investigation had lengthy criminal records making them ineligible to work in schools.
The unit works under a predominance of evidence standard and can continue an investigation after law enforcement has closed it.
Fletcher provided summaries of complaints from 2019 and 2020 that substantiated severe misconduct.
In the unit’s worst case, complaints about two staff members at a military academy brought forth more complaints.
Investigators found a teacher engaged in intercourse with an 18 year old student.
Another teacher groomed students with sexual motivation.
Another harassed a 12th grader with sexual comments and retaliated after she reported the misconduct.
Four individuals violated guidelines for maintaining boundaries, five improperly communicated with students, and seven failed to report misconduct.
The school board terminated the principal.
Three military instructors and two teachers resigned.
The board suspended the culture coordinator for two days without pay.
The board warned an instructor, a teacher, and a counselor.
The board terminated a security guard and another guard resigned.
In another case, a high school teacher groomed and sexually assaulted a student 17 years old on three occasions.
The board filed dismissal charges.
Last November a jury acquitted him of criminal charges.
A hearing on termination of his license was pending at the state board of education at the time of Fletcher’s report.
A Junior Reserve Officer Training Corps staff member had sex with a student 16 or 17 years old.
He provided alcohol to her and had her buy marijuana for him.
When he became aware of an investigation he threatened to kill her and her family if she disclosed his abuse.
He resigned, pleaded guilty of aggravated sexual abuse, registered as a sex offender, and was placed on probation for four years.
A driver’s education teacher exposed his pubic hair and the area around his penis to an 11th grader in a driver’s education trailer.
She reported him to two other staff members who didn’t notify administrators and instead made excuses for him and tipped him off about her complaint.
Classmates intimidated her for coming forward until a younger student stated the teacher sent her video of himself masturbating.
He resigned and a criminal charge of distributing harmful material to a minor remained pending.
The board gave improvement plans to the other staff members.
A high school teacher kissed and hugged students, rubbed their backs, solicited sexual acts, and communicated extensively with them on social media.
He told a student he loved her, called himself well hung, and asked a student to recruit another student for a threesome.
He denied the allegations, but text messages substantiated them and he resigned.
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