A financial analyst in the D.C. schools became a whistle-blower after schools executive Brenda Belton changed the passwords to his computer and telephones, sources have told The Examiner.
Belton, who was charged with monitoring 17 charter schools that enrolled about 4,000 students, is now at the center of a grand jury probe and three parallel investigations into her office’s spending.
A grand jury wants to know whether she paid relatives and friends for work they didn’t do.
Belton, through her lawyer, has denied any wrongdoing. She and her lawyer have refused further comment.
The investigation began thanks to financial analyst Steve Kapani, who told investigators that he grew suspicious of Belton earlier this year when the D.C. Public Charter School Board called to ask about $307,000 of No Child Left Behind Act money that Belton had spent.
Kapani had never heard of the account.
By March, he had thought he had seen disturbing trends in Brenda Belton’s spending.
Among other things, he told investigators that he found out different vendors were using the same federal tax identification number and that Belton had approved payments to three groups to do one job — “monitoring” the charter schools.
As it would turn out, some of those “monitors” had relationships with Belton.
A group calling itself Equal Access in Education used the same address as Belton’s daughter — a building Belton herself used to own, sources familiar with the investigation have said.
A group called Fitzgerald Consulting Service was run by Sandra Fitzgerald, a friend of Belton’s, Kapani told investigators.
Additionally, former Board of Education member Calvin Lockridge — uncle to current Board Member William Lockridge — was paid on several occasions as a monitor, Kapani told investigators.
It’s not clear how long Kapani would have kept working in silence. But sources familiar with the investigation say that Belton forced his hand.
Kapani’s Passwords were demanded in early March
Sources familiar with the investigation give the following account:
In early March, Belton came to Kapani and demanded his passwords to his officetelephone and computer. Kapani told investigators that he understood they weren’t his personal phone or computer, but he didn’t trust Belton enough to give her access.
He went to the schools’ information technology staff, but they told him that it was Belton’s decision to make. He then went to school board Executive Director Russell Smith. Smith said there was nothing he could do.
Kapani called Board of Education Member JoAnne Ginsberg, whom he had first gone to about Belton late last year. Ginsberg, who was out of town, told him not to hand over the passwords until she got back to the office the following Monday.
The next day, a Friday, technology staffers went into Kapani’s office to change his passwords. Belton told the staffers she had the approval of board Vice President Carolyn Graham. Graham, a Baptist minister, had been appointed to the school board in 2003 by Mayor Anthony Williams, shortly after Williams’ aborted attempts to take over the schools.
She had defended Belton from Ginsberg’s attempt to have Belton fired earlier this year.
When Ginsberg returned the following Monday, she went to Kapani’s office. He told her that he wanted to go to the D.C. Inspector General’s Office and tell them about his suspicions.
Board members suggested a variety of approaches
Kapani and Ginsberg sat in a conference room near Belton’s office and Kapani laid out some documents that he thought showed questionable spending.
But Kapani was too agitated and Ginsberg couldn’t understand the story he was trying to tell her. As they spoke, the door opened and in walked Belton. She looked down at the documents spread between Ginsberg and Kapani, looked back at the pair, and walked out of the door, slamming it. Ginsberg urged Kapani to head straight to the Inspector General. Before he could leave, though, Ginsberg spoke with CarolynGraham.
Graham told Ginsberg that board President Peggy Cooper Cafritz — and Belton herself — ought to know that Kapani was alleging wrongdoing. She also said that it was better to bring a general auditor in to look at the books.
Ginsberg relayed the message to Kapani, throwing her hands up in the air. The discussion went on through the day, but it was finally settled that Kapani would address the board ad hoc committee that supervised Belton’s office. Cafritz called the other members of the board to announce the meeting. “We’ve got a problem,” she told them. Before Kapani addressed the committee, Cafritz talked with him. She looked over his documents and told him, “Well, what you have is not credible. I practiced law. I was a lawyer. This is not credible.”
She also asked him to hand over the documents. She urged him not to go to the inspector general; instead, officials would bring in an independent auditor. Kapani refused to hand over the documents. And he didn’t address the committee. Within days, he went to the Inspector General’s Office to tell his story.
Council Member Patterson also voiced concerns
Kapani wasn’t the only one who was worried about how Brenda Belton ran the charter schools office.
As Kapani was gathering evidence that would take him to the Inspector General’s office, District Council Member Kathy Patterson was finishing her committee’s budget report.
Patterson was an advocate of the charter schools and was frustrated that so many were faltering.
Two different reports — one of them by the General Accountability Office, requested by Congress — had ripped the D.C. school board’s handling of its 17 charter schools.
Responding to those reports, Belton had complained that she was underfunded. As a result, Patterson doubled her budget — from about $300,000 in fiscal 2005 to about $600,000 in fiscal 2006.
But Patterson also said that the extra money meant extra accountability. At a public hearing in February, Patterson asked Belton to come up with a strategic plan to breathe life into the ailing charter schools.
Belton offered vague promises of bringing in “national experts” that would turn things around and concrete promises to supplement her testimony with hard plans. At an Education Committee budget hearing in mid-March — around the time that Kapani was preparing to go to the Inspector General’s office — Belton submitted a four-line budget.
The items included “personnel” and “non-personnel.”
Patterson said the report was unacceptable and asked for a breakdown of expenditures. Belton promised a full accounting.
But it didn’t materialize. And calls to Belton went unreturned.
Patterson’s budget report was due April 20, and her staffers told her they were getting anxious.
Congressional staffers wanted look at spending
They weren’t the only ones: Congressional staffers were calling to ask about into the hundreds of thousands of dollars they had appropriated to Belton’s office under the No Child Left Behind Act.
In mid-March, one of Patterson’s staffers left Belton a voice mail, telling her that the staffer “absolutely” needed Belton’s budget.
This time, there was a response. Belton left a voice mail message for Patterson’s staffer.
“How dare you ask for these numbers?” Belton said. “Who do you think you are?”
In the meantime, Patterson’s staff was dealing with Steve Kapani.
He offered explanations of some expenditures, but Patterson’s staffers said it wasn’t enough to account for anything.
They assumed that Kapani was part of the problem.
But they soon found that Kapani had gone to the Inspector General’s office. And one of the staffers called him to talk about it.
“I want to tell you more of the story,” Kapani told the staffer. He then told his story.
He said he was worried that the inspector general would bow to pressure from the school board and sweep his allegations under the rug.
But investigators at the Inspector General’s Office believed that they had more than a budget problem on their hands.
They called the U.S. Department of Education and the FBI’s public fraud and corruption unit.
