D.C. Schools Superintendent Clifford Janey charged the public for meals with union and city officials at chic restaurants from a bank account that was supposed to help failing schools and poor students, documents obtained by The Examiner show.
Janey was reimbursed for at least $1,100 for meals at such places the Palm, the Hyatt Regency and the Prime Rib last winter and spring, the records show.
The payment came from interest earned on the schools’ Central Investment Fund.
The fund was created to receive donations from citizens and private foundations. A top school source who spoke on the condition of anonymity said the fund is supposed to be used to help D.C.’s troubled schools and needy children.
Janey’s reimbursement requests say that the meals were “official business” with teachers’ union and city officials — including presumptive D.C. Council chair Vincent Gray, presumptive mayor Adrian Fenty and D.C. Chief Finance Officer Natwar Gandhi.
School staffers used thousands from the fund to buy food and water for meetings, the records also show. Janey did not return calls seeking comment. Schools spokesman Kevin Gunning refused comment.
According to a 2005 memorandum from Gandhi’s office, the fund is not to be used for employee meals unless “the funds derived are solely for that purpose” or “the funds were donated for that specific purpose.”
The interest from the central fund is only to be used for “a valid [schools] business reason” with the authorization of top schools finance officials, the memorandum states.
Kathy Patterson, chair of the District Council’s Education Committee, said she hopes that school officials will explain the reimbursements.
“I have more questions than answers,” she said.
The Central Investment Fund is the same fund tapped by former charter schools executive Brenda Belton. Belton is now target of a grand jury investigation of whether she and her friends pocketed hundreds of thousands of public dollars.
Maryanne Young, the spokeswoman for the D.C. finance office, said that Janey is an “allowable user” of the interest from the Central Investment Fund.
Young said, however, that her agency has little say in how the money is spent.
“By the time they get to us they have been allowed/disallowed by someone in administration,” Young wrote in an e-mail to The Examiner.
Other expenditures paid from interest fund:
» Nearly $200 for lunch with Saudi Arabian officials
» Almost $400 to an Illinois greeting card company
» Nearly $900 to buy water for four meetings — two of them within three weeks of each other
