A veteran D.C. schools staffer has been placed on administrative leave after she admitted to altering an e-mail that directed school finance officials to send payments to suspect contractors, top school officials said.
Mary Bunn had been told by Board of Education President Peggy Cooper Cafritz that she should either resign or be fired. Bunn admitted to cutting and pasting Board Vice President Carolyn Graham’s signature on a May 17 memo to the school’s comptroller.
Board members met behind closed doors late Tuesday and told Cafritz to rescind her ultimatum, member Jeff Smith told The Examiner.
Some board members suspect that Bunn altered the memo on the orders of Brenda Belton, the former charter schools executive who is now the target of a grand jury investigation, Smith said.
The grand jury wants to know if Belton steered money to herself, her family and her friends through a series of companies.
Graham has been linked to the scandal because she stood by Belton even after whistle-blower Steve Kapani came forward to accuse Belton of misappropriation.
Graham also sent a memo to a top school financial official directing him to pay several suspect contractors — including a motivational speaker who addressed staff from Graham’s private ministry — after Kapani came forward.
Graham is a Baptist minister and a candidate for board president.
She and Cafritz have said that the signature on the altered note came from the original memo to the top financial official.
But in an interview with The Examiner in September, Graham denied sending the original memo.
When Graham learned of the doctored memo, she sent out an e-mail to the board demanding the Bunn be fired immediately.
She did not attend Tuesday’s closed-door meeting.
The charter schools scandal has heightened tensions among the board members.
Smith said that some members were “surprised and disappointed” to learn that a letter to Kapani, placing him on administrative leave, did not contain a passage reassuring him that he had done nothing wrong.
Key moments in the investigation of the charter schools scandal
» Late December 2005: Brenda Belton allegedly altered an e-mail sent by her financial analyst, Steve Kapani. She allegedly inflated Kapani’s cost estimate from $5,000 to $55,000.
» Late January/early February: Officials from the D.C. Public Charter School Board called Belton’s secretary, Mary Bunn, asking for
invoices to justify $307,000 in No Child Left Behind funds that Belton had spent. Neither Bunn nor Kapani had heard of the funds.
» Early March: Belton insisted Kapani give her the passwords to his voicemail and computer. He refused and Belton had the passwords changed — allegedly on instructions from Board of Education Vice President Carolyn Graham.
» Mid-March: Kapani told the board he suspected Belton was funneling money to friends and herself. He notified the D.C. inspector general.
» May 31: The FBI raided Belton’s office, home and the offices of the Public Charter School Board.
» Early June: Belton and Kapani were put on administrative leave.
» Early October: Belton was notified she is the target of a grand jury
investigation.
» Oct. 16: The Board of Education voted to fire Belton.
» Oct 24: Bunn was placed on administrative leave after admitting she altered a memo.
