Cut from the same cloth

Sigh. This is beginning to get tiring. We have a school system and county leaders who not only won't work together for the greater good of the people (as in, those who pay their salaries), but seem to have a culture of greed, corruption and entitlement that knows no bounds.

From today's AJC:

Five employees in the DeKalb County CEO’s office and three county commissioners’ assistants got raises, despite other workers receiving a pay cut.

A joint investigation by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution and Channel 2 Action News found 956 DeKalb employees got increases in pay last year, but the majority of them were from promotions.

Many of those increases also included new employees who got bumps in pay after completing a six-month probation period, records show.

“There is no across-the-board merit raise or cost of living adjustment because we haven’t had the budget for it,” said Burke Brennan, interim spokesman for the CEO. “All of the people who got raises were at the requests of their supervisors. And there were very few who got straight merit increases.”

Those “very few” include employees who work directly for CEO Burrell Ellis, Commissioner Connie Stokes and Commissioner Sharon Barnes Sutton. The raises in the CEO’s office totaled about $32,000; Stokes’ office totaled about $20,000 and Sutton’s office totaled about $4,000.

Records obtained by the AJC also show that Ellis changes the scope of work for several of his employees, including promoting one woman from a housing project manager to deputy chief of staff – a job that carried a $31,000 raise.

But other employees – including police officers, firefighters, sanitation workers and road crews – were denied increases. They ended up losing money from unpaid holidays.

Kudos to one person - Elaine Boyer - who did not give her staff increases, said she was shocked to learn about raises, had these words:

“The thing that frosts me is that I felt the leadership was supportive of giving furloughs and unpaid holidays,” she told the AJC. “If we start having a special class of people, it’s going to hurt morale and turn people against each other.”

With leaders like these . . .

In an article titled, Former DeKalb schools chief, three others indicted, the AJC shared the charges listed in the District Attorney's indictment in the past week. Below is a sampling from the article:

A grand jury returned indictments on Lewis, Reid, also known as Pat Pope, her former husband Tony Pope and her secretary Cointa Moody.

“It’s hard for us to assess the full dollar amount, but Tony Pope made over $2 million,” Fleming said. “More than $80 million in contracts were all obtained through some type of fraud.”

Much of that money went to construction companies where Reid and Pope had connections, but no one from those firms were charged.

All four were either arrested by or turned themselves into sheriff’s deputies by Wednesday evening.

Lewis was booked into the DeKalb jail just before 8 p.m. Wednesday and was released on $200,000 bond about 90 minutes later.

Reid and Pope remained jailed Thursday morning, with bond set at $1 million each, according to jail records. Moody was being held Thursday on $200,000 bond.

The indictment includes the following:

Four counts of violating the racketeer influenced and corruption act against Lewis, Reid, Pope and Moody.

One count of theft by a government employee against Lewis, Reid and Moody.

One count of bribery against Lewis and Reid.

One count of falsifying public documents against Reid.

Lewis, 56, faces a maximum of 105 years in prison.

Reid, 52, faces up to 115 years in prison, investigators said. . . .

According to investigators, the scheme had begun in 2006 and involved the three school officials concealing information from the school board, altering documents and giving work to Pope’s architectural firm.

“All of the parties used their positions and the resources of school system to facilitate theft, fraud and obstruction, whether for personal gain or for the benefit of others,” Fleming said. “The money received by Tony Pope was then funneled to Pat Pope.” . . .

When she was hired, the couple was told he could complete one on-going school construction contract but could not work on any additional school projects, Fleming said.

But Lewis and Reid ignored that stipulation, the indictment alleges. The two, along with secretary Moody, 48, conspired to get Pope contracts. This was accomplished by issuing illegal change orders, altering construction projects and leaking information to Pope, all behind the school board’s back, Fleming said.

Those projects included work on Columbia High School, Ronald E. McNair Discovery Learning Academy, Arabia Mountain High School and the Mountain Industrial Complex.

For the Arabia Mountain project, Reid forged the signatures of several members of a bid selection committee to steer the work to her husband, Fleming said.

Pope also collected money by working as a subcontractor for the McNair project, investigators said. . . .

For a tally on the amount of money possibly redirected to Pope Architects check out this article -

DeKalb indictments box

Wednesday's indictments charged Tony Pope with fraudulently taking money from four school building projects in the DeKalb County school system. How much did each project bring him?

Columbia High: $1.122 million

McNair: $193,217

Mountain Industrial: $1.075 million


Total: $2.391 million

All of the accused are claiming innocence.

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Now - we have the following issues that need to be addressed by the board and the interim superintendent WHILE these indictments continue and a possible trial goes forth, creating enormous diversion:

• Redistricting - will it happen? Will the board implement a plan for 2010 or 2011?
• Block Scheduling vs 7 Period Days - will the board save money by eliminating the block?
• Magnet costs and the associated transportation costs - will the board continue to pay for magnet transportation?
• Will the board conduct an audit of the entire system's pay structure and job descriptions?
• And the biggest question of the day - will SACS threaten to take DCSS's accreditation and if so, will the governor step in as the new law allows?

Governor Sonny Perdue today signed into law Senate Bill 84, landmark school board governance legislation.

“SB 84 gives the state the ability to step in when a local school system’s accreditation is threatened. This bill strikes the appropriate balance between local control and state intervention when a system is in crisis,” said Gov. Perdue. “I want to thank my floor leaders, Rep. Jim Cole and Sen. Bill Heath, as well as our Education Committee Chairs, Rep. Brooks Coleman and Sen. Dan Weber for their hard work and leadership on this issue over the past two sessions.”

The legislation standardizes board ethics policies and board training, clarifies the law delineating the roles and responsibilities of superintendents and board members, creates minimum qualifications for board candidates, and gives the state the ability to find responsible citizens to serve on school boards when existing members fail to serve the interests of their students.

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Download the indictment here:
Crawford Lewis DeKalb RICO Indictment

See also:

Are we gearing up for a trial yet?

More Questions Than Answers

We've had quite the conversation about the indictments against Crawford Lewis, Pat Reid (FKA Pat Pope), Vincent (Tony) Pope and Reid's secretary Cointa Moody.

That thread netted a list of questions that we need answers to such as:

• Why didn't the Board of Education challenge some line items presented by Pat Pope at monthly board meetings?
• The state even brought some issues to the BOE's attention that would have saved them millions, why was Pope never fired for wasting tax dollars or not filing proper paperwork?
• What did board members know and when did you know there was a problem?
• Why did you agree to allow Pope/Reid to continue to do business as usual when you red flagged some key construction problems?
• Why did you allow Lewis/Pope/Reid to pour tax dollars into a new mega-office complex instead of repairing all the schools for our students?
• Who is responsible for checking over and signing off on Crawford Lewis' P Card bills and why were the Bahamas hotel and the Ritz hotel bills paid? Who signed that payment?
• Who is responsible for paying construction contracts? Who signed the checks made out to Anthony Pope's Architecture Company knowing that Pope was not supposed to be doing further business with DCSS? Who signed those checks knowing that paperwork showing board approval should be attached?
• Why did the architect "quit" the Cross Keys project in the middle of the Pope/Lewis manipulations? Why did the board not question the lack of progress on promised SCHOOL projects such as Lakeside, Cross Keys, Dunwoody and Chamblee and instead rubber-stamp multi-millions being spent on administrative offices?
• What exactly did the board know about allegations against Lewis when they "agreed" to separate with him, giving him a $90,000 severance package?
• Additionally, are taxpayers REALLY saddled with $100,000 in legal fees for Lewis' defense of his actions against those same taxpayers?
• How on earth were two people capable of manipulating multi-millions of dollars right under the noses of the elected officials charged with the fiduciary responsibility of monitoring school tax dollars and SPLOST dollars?
• What does our board expect ordinary parents and taxpayers to think? There has been suspiciously little information coming forth from the board to the public on this catastrophe.  Why?

If you have answers, please post them in the comments.  If you (like most of us) only seem to have more questions, then post those as well. 

Did Frankie Callaway encourage cheating and then hurriedly retire?

Don't click the picture - click this link to view the WSB report.

It seems we have yet another disappointment in a DCSS leader. Frankie Callaway (a $165,000 Deputy Superintendent) apparently asked a "Ms. Patricia Patterson" last May to change her statement about pressuring a teacher to alter the grades of a certain student who had under-performed and skipped school, yet still expected to graduate at Redan HS. Astonishingly, she did graduate - thanks to some magic grade changing by someone. When DCSS began an investigation, (prompted by WSB's investigation) Callaway requested that Patterson "clarify" or change her statement to school investigators. Patterson did, stating that "I have made the changes you requested. The changes are actually counter to the facts." Georgia Tech educated teacher, Kesha Lanier left the school system in protest due to this grade-changing event. And guess who DCSS asked the state to investigate, saying she acted unethically? You got it - the teacher - Ms. Lanier. Not Ms. Patterson and certainly not Frankie Callaway. Nope - she retired one week after "clarifying" her own statement to investigators. A school spokesman told Richard Belcher, "Dr. Callaway retired and there are no documents to the contrary. She had 34 years of wonderful service."

As one of our bloggers pointed out, "I can absolutely assure you that DeKalb teachers come under intense pressure to change grades for students who have have failing grades. The pressure comes from parents and flows through to the teacher from the principal. Teachers should not quit - rather they need to seek legal recourse. It is against the law to force a teacher to alter student records. DeKalb officials need to be held accountable for such actions. In the end it is the student who suffers for these unethical actions. Giving a student a passing grade he/she has not earned is dishonest and unfair to all students."