20101016 article contributed by Rho Inseon

San Francisco School Administrators Schemed to Take Money, Documents Say

 

By TREY BUNDY

Published: November 13, 2010

 

A group of San Francisco Unified School District administrators, including an associate superintendent, engaged in a long-running scheme to funnel district money into their personal bank accounts via nonprofit community organizations, according to internal documents.

The administrators worked out of the Student Support Services Department, which partners with community organizations to provide thousands of San Francisco students with health education, substance abuse counseling, violence prevention, after-school activities and other services.

The scandal has stunned San Francisco educators and thrown Student Support Services into turmoil at a time when the district faces a $113 million deficit. Some vital student services have been threatened as investigators comb through millions of dollars of transactions dating back at least four years.

Documents obtained by The Bay Citizen under a California Public Records Act request show that administrators directed money from community organizations into their own pockets. Some also fabricated overtime reports and falsified signatures on district contracts. The records also include copies of checks and invoices, suspension and termination notices and contracts bearing signatures that the district says were falsified.

"It was a system developed by a small group of individuals operating outside of the budget and finance department," said Deputy Superintendent Richard Carranza, who participated in the district's investigation.

The documents, many redacted, show evidence of transactions totaling tens of thousands of dollars and possibly more.

In an interview, Mr. Carranza said the district opened the investigation in June after a community organization raised questions to him about irregular accounting practices. The San Francisco district attorney's office is conducting a separate investigation, according to Mr. Carranza and others familiar with the inquiry. A spokesman for that office declined to comment.

The district's investigation is focused on Associate Superintendent Trish Bascom, who is the former head of Student Support Services, and four of her co-workers. For years, until she retired in June, Ms. Bascom had primary control over money distributed to community organizations that were hired to provide services for the district. The department's annual budget is nearly $20 million.

The documents show that community organizations under contract to the district made payments directly to individual Student Support Services administrators. Mr. Carranza said such payments violated district regulations. Ms. Bascom's lawyer, Stuart Hanlon, confirmed that Ms. Bascom had approved the payments, but he said the transactions conformed to district regulations. Mr. Hanlon said the payments were bonuses approved by Ms. Bascom to make up for salary cuts.

"If they want to call it stealing, they can," he said. "I would call the district incompetent. It wasn't stealing. It was paying people bonuses for hard work."

Kevin Truitt, who succeeded Ms. Bascom, said investigators seized computers and documents shortly after he arrived at the end of June. The seizures, along with the removal of key department officials, forced Mr. Truitt and his staff to scramble to put programs in place.

"I'm not privy to the documents or computer files pertaining to the department I now run," Mr. Truitt said in an interview.

The scandal has made it difficult for Student Support Services administrators to track financing for programs, according to one district official.

In an e-mail, Mr. Carranza wrote that Student Support Services programs "are being fully funded. We are committed to ensuring that our students are not penalized for the actions of a few individuals."

In addition to Ms. Bascom, other administrators under investigation by the district include Meyla Ruwin, the department's senior executive director; Betty Wong, Ms. Bascom's assistant; and two of Ms. Bascom's administrative analysts, Linda Lovelace and Lilian Capuli, according to Mr. Carranza and documents.

tbundy@baycitizen.orgJennifer Gollan contributed reporting. jgollan@baycitizen.org