The FBI searched River Rouge School District offices on Wednesday, nearly two months after a former superintendent filed a whistleblower lawsuit against the district, a district employee and two board members.
In the lawsuit, former superintendent Carlos Lopez alleges his contract was not renewed after he raised concerns about misspent federal education money and an employee who was steering district work toward a relative. He also claims district employees and board members defamed him and breached his contract by failing to pay his benefits.
Simon Shaykhet, spokesman for the FBI, said agents went to the districts main offices Wednesday, but he could give no further comment.The FBI had a warrant.
It wasnt a raid. It was the execution of a search warrant, and the warrant was sealed.
The FBI didnt disclose what they were looking for. But in the lawsuit Lopez filed, most of the allegations are against Dolores Reid, the districts executive director of state and federal projects.
Its the latest hit for the financially troubled district, which has struggled with a deficit for years and is in danger of losing a chunk of its operational funds because voters in the district have twice rejected efforts to renew a district millage.
The districts former superintendent, Benjamin Benford II, was indicted and pled guilty in 2005 to extorting gifts from school employees.
Among the allegations Lopez made in the lawsuit, which originally was filed in Wayne County Circuit Court but is now in federal court:
• Reid failed to notify the district until June of 2011 that she was contracting with her brother-in-law to provide supplemental educational services to students in the district.
• Lopez further alleges that she limited the number of students other service providers could work with so that her brother-in-law could work with more students.
• Reid forged Lopezs signature on invoices in order to pay her brother-in-law for his work.
• The district paid contractors for services it could have received for no charge from the Wayne Regional Educational Service Agency (RESA), the intermediate school district for Wayne County.
The lawsuit names the school district, Reid, School Board President Valveta Reese and Board Vice President Deborah Harper. The case is before U.S. District Court Judge Patrick Duggan.
In their answer to the lawsuit filed May 15, the defendants neither admitted nor denied the above allegations.
However, they did deny Lopezs allegation that the school board was denying him his benefits, or that they defamed him when board members from the Madison Heights School District visited the district prior to making a decision about the superintendents job Lopez had interviewed for.
Lopez began investigating Reid after officials from the Wayne Regional Educational Service Agency, the intermediate school district for Wayne County, raised concerns in April 2011 about why the district wasnt taking advantage of services the ISD offers but was instead paying outside contractors for the work. Some of those contractors were Wayne RESA contractors.
We realized we werent getting requests for services from River Rouge for some of the programs theyre entitled to, said Chris Wigent, superintendent of the Wayne RESA.
They were indeed paying for those services they could have been receiving from us. Wigent said all districts in the county should have been well aware of the services much of it funded with grants because the ISD has held meetings and sent emails to administrators in the local districts.
The Lopez lawsuit said the district paid $287,735 for services including principal, literacy, math, data and process coaches that the district could have received without charge from Wayne RESA.
Wayne RESA also began investigating whether those contractors were double-dipping getting paid by the ISD and the River Rouge district.
He said the result of that investigation did not uncover criminal activity, but he couldnt comment further except to say the ISD was satisfied by the outcome. Those contractors no longer work for Wayne RESA, Wigent said.
Lopez brought his concerns to former School Board President Jonathan Tate in July of 2011, but Tate told him he would not present the findings to the board and said there would not be enough votes on the board to terminate Reid.
On Jan. 21 of this year, the board voted not to renew his contract and placed him on administrative leave.
This was about six months after Lopez asked the Michigan Department of Education to investigate, and about a month after Lopez recommended the board terminate Reids employment.
Detroit Free Press Staff Writer Bill Laitner contributed to this report.
BJP chief gets an earful from RSS - deccanchronicle.com
RSS bigwigs reportedly gave BJP state president K.S. Eshwarappa an earful for his remarks that the BJP government rode to power in 2008 relying on money and caste power. The BJP chief had ignited a fresh controversy in the ruling party with loyalists of former CM B.S. Yeddyurappa—many of whom had shifted from the Congress and JD(S) to the BJP— expressing outrage over his remarks.
The BJP president had said that the Yeddyurappa government was formed by launching Operation Kamala with money and caste playing a prime role. With the BJP just having emerged from a severe crisis, RSS functionaries reportedly advised Eshwarappa to focus on balancing the interests of different groups instead of raking up controversies. Soon after the rebuke, Eshwarappa denied making the statement attributed to him.
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