Supervisors in the District of Columbia’s troubled special education office continued signing time sheets for their ex-employees long after they left, costing taxpayers hundreds of thousands of dollars, school records and e-mails obtained by The Examiner show.
According to records obtained under the Freedom of Information Act, five ex-employees — three teachers, a teacher’s aide and a special education executive — were each paid for at least a month after they left the office.
One teacher who retired on Dec. 31, 2004, was paid her $71,116 salary through June 2006, the records show. Another teacher left March 31, 2006, but was paid his $64,589 salary through September. The third teacher left on March 3, 2006, but was paid his $43,773 salary through June, the records show.
All of the employees worked for the schools’ special education office, which is charged with teaching and caring for more than 10,000 of the District’s most vulnerable students. It also handles payments to private schools that teach disabled students the public schools can’t accommodate. The special education office consistently runs over its nearly $140 million budget and has often been given scathing audits for its shoddy accounting practices.
It’s not clear if these ex-employees were mistakenly or intentionally paid. The D.C. Inspector General’s office is investigating, schools Comptroller Abinet Belachew said in an e-mail sent through D.C. finance office spokeswoman Maryann Young.
Young said three of the employees “might” have been entitled to back pay.
E-mails obtained by The Examiner tell a different story. Beginning in mid-May, Belachew sent a flurry of e-mails to top school officials — including Superintendent Clifford B. Janey — saying that overpayments were “a major problem” in the special education office, extending well beyond the employees he had identified.
In a May 18 e-mail sent to several officials, Belachew identified four of the ex-employees.
“This is just what we know so far,” Belachew wrote. “It is reasonable to believe there is more.”
Janey responded in an e-mail, circulated among his top staff, on May 26.
“Keep me informed,” the e-mail said. “Thanks.”
Authorities still haven’t recouped the money from the ex-employees, Belachew told The Examiner.
Belachew’s e-mails to other school leaders said the time sheets for four of the ex-employees were being approved by then-special education director Silas Christian and Robert Brent Elementary School Principal Arienne Clark. Christian approved time sheets for two former teachers and the ex-executive; Clark approved time sheets for the ex-teacher’s aide, Belachew’s e-mails said.
Christian, now a middle school principal in Baton Rouge, La., said he knew of only one overpayment — the one to the ex-executive. He blamed it on lower-level staff.
“I had a lot of people working under me,” he said.
Christian said that, contrary to rumors he was fired over the payroll scandal, he left D.C. schools last year because he was the victim of “major harassment.” He said he is now considering a civil suit against the schools and the special education office.
“That office is screwed up,” he said. “Very screwed up.”
He refused to elaborate, saying, “I don’t want to participate in your story.”
Clark denied having approved the former aide’s time sheet. She said that no one from central administration has talked to her about the overpayment.
“I didn’t authorize anything after he left,” Clark told The Examiner. “I’m not sure why they would think that.”
The e-mails obtained by The Examiner also show that school leaders didn’t have a policy in place to deal with the overpayments.
“While I understand the sensitivity of this, we cannot afford to let these actions continue without sanctions,” school executive Nicole Conley wrote in a June 22 e-mail that was sent to several top officials. “These occurrences happen all too frequently.”
A review of the special education office by schools’ compliance officer John Cashmon was published in April 2005. It found that the office’s time and attendance system was “susceptible to fraud, waste and abuse.”
A recent audit by the consulting firm BDO Seidman LLP blasted the special education office — and the school system in general — for not putting adequate controls in place to protect the public’s money.
“We were all on notice,” Conley said in an e-mail.
Anyone with information on D.C. schools can call 202-459-4956.
D.C. Office of Special Education
» 10,088 students
» $139,632,675 budget
» Current director: Marla Oakes
Source: D.C. Public Schools
