Saturday, December 03, 2005
School Adminstrator Crooks Caught by Southtown Reporter Linda Lutton and Gurnee Citizen-Watchdog Rich Conley
In a stunning reversal of fortunes, a son of Chicago’s 19th ward, Tom Ryan is going to state prison for admitting looting Sauk Village School District 168 of up to $100,000. State prison. That ought to send shivers up the backs of other crooked school administrators. They might run into students they used to discipline.
Ryan was running for higher office in the Illinois Association of School Administrators when the scandal broke. What does that say about the ability of a crook’s ability to con others?
The Daily Southtown gives reporter Linda Lutton the credit for laying out the fiscal crimes for, first, the State Superintendent of Schools and, then, the Cook County State’s Attorney.
Now, the Daily Southtown reports that the Regional Superintendent of Schools is under pressure to oust “Sauk Village school board members who received questionable gifts” from Ryan.
In Gurnee, it was a local anti-tax group that blew the whistle on former Principal Philip Roffman. Just indicted and planning to plead guilty in state court—no Club Fed for him, if convicted—for stealing from the student activity fund. Citizen watchdog Richard Conley, citizen watchdog for Citizens for Responsible Government, blew the whistle on the Warren Township High School District 121 corruption.
Conley is 23-year local utility employee (with a background in Human Resources, Training and Industrial Safety) who was only interested in his Gurnee grade school district at first. He fought a referendum that he thought ill conceived.
(Conley has a Bachelor of Science from SIU’s College of Education, with an emphasis in Education, Training and Development, plus a Masters of Science in Human Resource Management from Keller Graduate School of Management.)
Then, he went to an informational meeting of the Warren Township High School District where former Superintendent Bob McKanna refused to answer his questions.
“I started doing FOIs (Freedom of Information requests) to get financial information,” Conley said. “When reviewing the funds over multiple years, I noticed there was a sharp increase in the operating and maintenance and tort funds, while the education fund decreased.”
He “found that over a two-year period that they had shifted approximately $5 million from the education fund to these other funds.
“The school was now claiming it was short $3 million in the education fund,” Conley continued, “when, in reality, they had only shifted the money to other accounts. My belief is they shifted the money out to drum up the need for a referendum, which wasn’t real.
“The secondary issue was that the tax increase would have raised $8 million a year.
“So, there were two lies. One that they needed the money and two the rate increase they said they needed would have raised almost three times what they claimed they were short.
“That raised red flags that there could be other financial improprieties,” Conley said.
So, he started looking at contracts and other funds. He focused in on a $125,000 Coca-Cola contract and found two student activity funds with no students attached.
“One was called the Renaissance Fund. The other was Varisty,” he explained. “However, Varsity was a defunct club since 1980 and Renaissance, we could not locate anything on it.
The $125,000 a year from the Coke fund wasn’t going into the Education Fund.
“Instead it was being placed into two activity funds,” Conley discovered. “Both accounts were receiving and spending money in the tens of thousands.
“Next, I pulled the requests for reimbursements,” he explained. “I found that some was spent on trips to Springfield with no school purpose, (some) that did not occur, electronic equipment, custom-made silk neckties, Bose radios, high-end stereo equipment, I-Pods, internet porn sites, phone sex, CD’s and DVD’s, Chicago theater tickets, meals, custom made shirts.
“Everything was for personal use,” he found.
“Starting in early 2004 we started asking questions about the existence of these clubs and the money going in and coming out. I started getting suspicious.”
The school administration and board stalled.
“There were some school board meetings where the apologists for wrongdoing were trying to intimidate Citizens for Responsible Government members from pursuing this atrocity,” Ken Arnold, another leader in the organization, explained
“The second quarter the expenditures,” Conley explained, “we saw didn’t look appropriate for a student activity club that didn’t even have students in it.
“I was told at the meetings that they would look into and get back to me by the end of the school year. They didn’t.”
He kept asking questions during the summer, but nothing happened before the 2004-2005 school year started.
“I lost patience and went to the press (the Daily Herald),” Conley said.
“Based on its being in the paper, they decided to hire a special investigator in October,” he continued. “He reported in December that these things (Conley had found had) all occurred. “That’s when the state’s attorney was notified and it took him ten months for them to finish up with it,” resulting in the recent plea agreement announcement.
“I’m troubled that some people we entrust to educate our children to be morally ethical aren’t,” Conley said, reflecting on his whistle-blowing.
Referring to Conley, Arnold confirmed, “He took the point.” Both are leaders in the group with the web site StopTaxHike.com.
Arnold believes that admitting to only one felony count and reimbursement of illegally obtained school funds represent too easy a deal for the errant principal.
“Loss of his state school pension is part of the punishment he should have,” Arnold said.
The general rule of thumb is that a teacher or someone with a teaching certificate who is convicted of a felony related to his position will lose his pension.
“This (is the type of) misspending and theft of public and our children’s funds I’ll be looking for in Washington,” added Arnold, a candidate in the Republican primary to face off with Melissa Bean.
For Sunday's advice from the Daily Herald (see 3rd editorial, entitled, "Indictment should alert all schools"), click here.
To return to McHenry County Blog, click here.
Ryan was running for higher office in the Illinois Association of School Administrators when the scandal broke. What does that say about the ability of a crook’s ability to con others?
The Daily Southtown gives reporter Linda Lutton the credit for laying out the fiscal crimes for, first, the State Superintendent of Schools and, then, the Cook County State’s Attorney.
Now, the Daily Southtown reports that the Regional Superintendent of Schools is under pressure to oust “Sauk Village school board members who received questionable gifts” from Ryan.
In Gurnee, it was a local anti-tax group that blew the whistle on former Principal Philip Roffman. Just indicted and planning to plead guilty in state court—no Club Fed for him, if convicted—for stealing from the student activity fund. Citizen watchdog Richard Conley, citizen watchdog for Citizens for Responsible Government, blew the whistle on the Warren Township High School District 121 corruption.
Conley is 23-year local utility employee (with a background in Human Resources, Training and Industrial Safety) who was only interested in his Gurnee grade school district at first. He fought a referendum that he thought ill conceived.
(Conley has a Bachelor of Science from SIU’s College of Education, with an emphasis in Education, Training and Development, plus a Masters of Science in Human Resource Management from Keller Graduate School of Management.)
Then, he went to an informational meeting of the Warren Township High School District where former Superintendent Bob McKanna refused to answer his questions.
“I started doing FOIs (Freedom of Information requests) to get financial information,” Conley said. “When reviewing the funds over multiple years, I noticed there was a sharp increase in the operating and maintenance and tort funds, while the education fund decreased.”
He “found that over a two-year period that they had shifted approximately $5 million from the education fund to these other funds.
“The school was now claiming it was short $3 million in the education fund,” Conley continued, “when, in reality, they had only shifted the money to other accounts. My belief is they shifted the money out to drum up the need for a referendum, which wasn’t real.
“The secondary issue was that the tax increase would have raised $8 million a year.
“So, there were two lies. One that they needed the money and two the rate increase they said they needed would have raised almost three times what they claimed they were short.
“That raised red flags that there could be other financial improprieties,” Conley said.
So, he started looking at contracts and other funds. He focused in on a $125,000 Coca-Cola contract and found two student activity funds with no students attached.
“One was called the Renaissance Fund. The other was Varisty,” he explained. “However, Varsity was a defunct club since 1980 and Renaissance, we could not locate anything on it.
The $125,000 a year from the Coke fund wasn’t going into the Education Fund.
“Instead it was being placed into two activity funds,” Conley discovered. “Both accounts were receiving and spending money in the tens of thousands.
“Next, I pulled the requests for reimbursements,” he explained. “I found that some was spent on trips to Springfield with no school purpose, (some) that did not occur, electronic equipment, custom-made silk neckties, Bose radios, high-end stereo equipment, I-Pods, internet porn sites, phone sex, CD’s and DVD’s, Chicago theater tickets, meals, custom made shirts.
“Everything was for personal use,” he found.
“Starting in early 2004 we started asking questions about the existence of these clubs and the money going in and coming out. I started getting suspicious.”
The school administration and board stalled.
“There were some school board meetings where the apologists for wrongdoing were trying to intimidate Citizens for Responsible Government members from pursuing this atrocity,” Ken Arnold, another leader in the organization, explained
“The second quarter the expenditures,” Conley explained, “we saw didn’t look appropriate for a student activity club that didn’t even have students in it.
“I was told at the meetings that they would look into and get back to me by the end of the school year. They didn’t.”
He kept asking questions during the summer, but nothing happened before the 2004-2005 school year started.
“I lost patience and went to the press (the Daily Herald),” Conley said.
“Based on its being in the paper, they decided to hire a special investigator in October,” he continued. “He reported in December that these things (Conley had found had) all occurred. “That’s when the state’s attorney was notified and it took him ten months for them to finish up with it,” resulting in the recent plea agreement announcement.
“I’m troubled that some people we entrust to educate our children to be morally ethical aren’t,” Conley said, reflecting on his whistle-blowing.
Referring to Conley, Arnold confirmed, “He took the point.” Both are leaders in the group with the web site StopTaxHike.com.
Arnold believes that admitting to only one felony count and reimbursement of illegally obtained school funds represent too easy a deal for the errant principal.
“Loss of his state school pension is part of the punishment he should have,” Arnold said.
The general rule of thumb is that a teacher or someone with a teaching certificate who is convicted of a felony related to his position will lose his pension.
“This (is the type of) misspending and theft of public and our children’s funds I’ll be looking for in Washington,” added Arnold, a candidate in the Republican primary to face off with Melissa Bean.
For Sunday's advice from the Daily Herald (see 3rd editorial, entitled, "Indictment should alert all schools"), click here.
To return to McHenry County Blog, click here.
# posted by Cal Skinner : 7:08 PM
