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 Chicago Public Schools employees
stole thousands of dollars in gift cards meant for students, according to a
report from the Chicago Board of Education’s Office of Inspector General, or
OIG.
The OIG’s annual report released Jan. 3 “included a series of theft cases in
which CPS employees used gift cards, paid for with school funds, to make
personal purchases.”
In addition to documenting the improper use of gift cards, Inspector General
Nicholas Schuler detailed a variety of alleged thefts in the report, explaining
how CPS teachers, staff and principals used funds meant for students for
personal purposes. The report does not name those individuals accused of
wrongdoing.
 From Jan. 1, 2013, to Dec. 21, 2016, CPS spent more than $250,600 on nearly
7,500 gift cards, according to the OIG’s report. Most of these were for specific
stores and were meant to serve as student and family incentives. The other gift
cards were “large dollar amount Visa, MasterCard or American Express cards.”
According to the report, one CPS high school principal used public funds to
purchase 16 MasterCard gift cards worth $3,100. These gift cards were supposedly
for costs incurred on school-funded college visits. However, the OIG’s report
states that this high school principal spent more than $1,500 worth of gift
cards on personal expenses, including “telephone bill payments for his personal
account.”
The OIG’s report further explains this same principal “stole an additional
$404.99 directly from the school.”
In addition to the theft, the OIG found that this principal severely mismanaged
school funds over the course of three school years. The report says nearly
$8,600 is still missing, including eight other gift cards worth $4,000 purchased
from a single vendor.
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The report points to
incidents at three other CPS schools in which CPS employees
misappropriated or stole school gift cards to make more than $5,500
worth of purchases. The employees used the gift cards for several
“improper purchases,” including car detailing and service at a BMW
dealership, a steakhouse dinner and a social lunch at The Cheesecake
Factory.
The OIG’s report argues that gift card purchases are wasteful, as
vendors charge processing and service fees on top of the value of
the gift cards, and recommends the Chicago Board of Education craft
a policy to more tightly control this practice.
Another principal stole more than $22,400 from his elementary school
over a four-year period. Using checks, this principal purchased
“goods from Costco Wholesale Clubs and Apple Stores located
throughout metropolitan Chicago for his and his family’s personal
use.”
The OIG’s report also alleges other improper uses of school
resources, including a CPS principal using school funds for a
teachers’ “lunch club” in which “expensive gourmet food was prepared
for the teachers.”
The dishes included lobster, crab, shrimp, salmon and steak,
according to the report.
In addition to these thefts, the report covers more routine OIG
investigations, such as probes into payroll fraud and sick time
abuses, ethics violations and application and admissions fraud
cases.
The OIG’s report also addresses earlier investigations and an
alleged cover-up that led to the exit of CPS CEO Forrest Claypool.
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