Alabama financial woes

Alabama schools seek loans to pay salaries.

October 31, 2008 - The Mobile County system this week borrowed $18 million from a bank to make its $33 million payroll on Friday.

Baldwin County school officials may need to take out a multi-million dollar loan to pay their teachers and employees to pay their employees early for the winter break. Earlier this week the Baldwin County school system borrowed $2.5 million from its $22 million savings account after the state announced it would cut monthly payroll allocations by 25 percent.

The state Suprintendent advised schools that the Education Trust Fund would only be able to pay 75 percent of October's payroll costs due to a lack of tax revenue.

Community colleges in Alabama will not be receiving state allocations to pay for the October payroll, due to the dwindling state of the Alabama Education Trust Fund. And community colleges will only be paid after the k-12 schools are.

The 25 percent state shortfall left many administrators concerned that across-the-board spending cuts -- called proration -- are looming.

The Oct. 31st Anniston Star editorial was blunt about the reasons for the cash flow problem.

For too long, Alabamians have foolishly believed that using sales and income taxes to pay most of the bills for public education was an acceptable plan. Regressive sales taxes fluctuate too wildly in tough times? Who cares, some Alabamians say. Income taxes aren't reliable enough to ensure that schools' needs will be met? Let the next Legislature worry about that, others have surmised.

Now the result is lethal. The economy's in the tank. Extra cash and operating reserves are becoming a relic of the past. Sales-tax revenue has plummeted. Income-tax figures have dropped as unemployment has risen.

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TT - No mention at all about how that same Education Trust Fund has paid for "double dipping" legislators who either have financial ties to Alabama community colleges or the 13 legislators who had full-time jobs in the Legislature and were on the community college payroll, along with their relatives and friends. And no mention of the latest sentencing - that of W.L. Langston, director of Fire College.

The Alabama Press-Register (Oct. 31) said Langston "deserved his sentence" of ten years in prison.

Mr. Langston used taxpayer and Fire College money to build houses for himself and another two-year college president. He made deals to provide children of system officials with jobs that required little or no work.

They said that the sentence is by far the longest handed down so far in the community college scandal, which included multiple charges filed against Bishop State employees and has ensnared high-ranking officials, rank-and-file employees and some legislators.

See TT coverage here here here

Patronage Cesspool

The headline says it all:
"Trial gives glimpse of patronage cesspool"

THE FRAUD trial of state Rep. Sue Schmitz is unfolding as a tale of the powerful helping the powerful secure taxpayer-funded jobs and benefits.

Federal authorities say Rep. Schmitz, D-Toney, ripped off the taxpayers by taking $177,000 in salary for what amounted to a no-work job in Alabama's two-year college system.

The jury in the case will have the ultimate say on whether Rep. Schmitz committed any crimes. She is entitled to the presumption of innocence until a jury decides otherwise.

But Alabamians are free to draw their own conclusions about the testimony of high-profile witnesses such as House Speaker Seth Hammett and former two-year system Chancellor Roy Johnson.

Rep. Hammett's testimony was as disappointing as it was enlightening. The veteran Democratic lawmaker generally is viewed as a responsible, evenhanded speaker. But judging by his own testimony in Rep. Schmitz' trial, he's also a behind-the-scenes patronage dispenser and an errand boy for Paul Hubbert.

The famously powerful Mr. Hubbert runs the Alabama Education Association. On issues related to education, he also runs the Legislature — with some assistance from the elected leaders, including Mr. Hammett.

Read the whole thing from the Alabama Press-Register (August 28)

They conclude that if the Speaker "wants to regain his former stature, he should use his power for a more public-spirited purpose than currying favor with Paul Hubbert. We suggest he start by backing long-stalled ethics reform legislation, including a ban on legislators holding government jobs. "

TT - entry for Sue Schmitz and the corruption in Alabama education.

Corruption Watch

The trial to watch.

August 19, 2008 - The trial of Alabama state Rep. Sue Schmitz will never be a HBO movie, but it will make huge waves in Alabama where criminal corruption in education and the two-year college system has shaken the roots of the corrupt political establishment.

Schmitz is among 43 legislators who had financial ties to two-year colleges from 2002-2006. The legislators, their close relatives or businesses received work from the system during the period, in most cases after the lawmakers were elected. A newspaper investigation found 13 legislators who were presently employed in Alabama community college system.

Schmitz is accused of taking $175,000 from the community college system for a federally-funded job she never performed. Even her firing from the position by the new Chancellor was a show of hubris. She claimed fair dismissal rights as if she was a teacher. Chancellor Bradley Burnes responded to her arrest and the year and a half legal duel with the teachers' union.

A federal investigation of the two-year system has resulted in agreements to plead guilty by a former state representative and a former two-year college chancellor. Two current legislators, one of them Schmitz, have been charged.

THE FIRST DAY was the testimony by former two-year college Chancellor Roy Johnson, 62, who testified that in 2002, Alabama Education Association Executive Secretary Paul Hubbert and Speaker of the House Seth Hammett asked him to help find work for Schmitz.

The reason given was because she had a difficult work situation in Madison County, where she was struggling to balance her daily duties as a teacher and as a member of the Alabama Legislature. Johnson said he contacted the then president of the Central Alabama Community College and asked him to find a job for Schmitz.

[In 2002, she was forced to leave the Madison County teaching job when after the school district told her in 2002 she would have to take leave without pay for days she worked in Montgomery on legislative business. Link is to previous entry.]

At the time when Johnson contacted the Central Alabama Community College, the program had no openings and was struggling for money. Johnson said college officials, "wanted some assurances that we would fund that position and I gave those assurances."

By 2005, her supervisor at federally-funded program complained that Schmitz "simply did not show up for work. In fact, she never did.

But what is already interesting is who had asked Johnson to provide the job for Schmitz.

Paul Hubbert, the executive secretary of the Alabama Education Association is the head of the state's largest teachers union. The union is usually referred to as "the politically powerful Alabama Education Association" by Alabama newpapers. Hubbert, writing August 11 in the Montgomery Advertiser, compared not allowing state employees to also hold public office to a new kind of segregation ("In Alabama we have a sordid history of denying groups political rights. For decades blacks and women were denied the right to vote and the right to run for public office.)

He denied there was such a thing as "double-dipping."

House Speaker Seth Hammett told a federal jury today he arranged the funding for a job with the CITY program for state Rep. Sue Schmitz. He said he was approached about Schmitz's employment situation by Dr. Paul Hubbert, executive director of the Alabama Education Association. He later talked to Schmitz about funding for a job with the youth program.

IN OTHER NEWS: The wife of former Shelton State Community College president agreed to plead guilty to fraud charges. Melinda Kay Umphrey, 58, was employed as a coordinator at the Alabama Fire College, which was on Shelton State's campus, at an annual salary of $40,000 but performed no legitimate work. She was paid $127,594 in salary and received benefits valued at $29,139.

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BACKGROUND
See Patronage (how the system works)
See Double Dipping in Alabama
See Double Dipping (state school board bans the practice, finally.)
Hard-hitting Press-Register editorial about Paul Hubbert and the Alabama Education Association and their opposition to reform and their lust for power that concludes, "The leaders of the AEA talk about education, but they believe in power. They may be about to discover that even their power has limits. "
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September 8 - The trial ended in a mistrial.
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FIRE COLLEGE DIRECTOR SENTENCED October 30 - The former director of Fire College, W.L. Langston, 66, was sentenced to 10 years in prison after his conviction on multiple charges. He was also ordered to pay $1.4 million in restitution to the state.

Langston helped set up tens of thousands of dollars in contracts and scholarships for his children and those of administrators who run the state's two-year college system, records show.

Langston's actions offer more insight into how the fire college was managed and how he spent some of the millions in state funds the college received each year. Most of the college's $6 million budget comes from the state's education fund.

The Fire College is part of the Alabama Department of Postsecondary Education, and the senior Langston was on the payroll of Shelton State College as executive director. He also headed a private foundation that was supposed to support the Fire College. His son was also sentenced after pleading guilty to charges that he was paid thousands of dollars for a bogus work contract.
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October 31 - Alabama Press-Register editorial, "Fire College director deserves his sentence"

Birmingham, ALABAMA

August 18, 2008 - Jury selection has begun in the trial of state Rep. Sue Schmitz, a teacher turned legislator, accused of taking $175,000 in pay from Alabama's two-year college system for work she never performed.

The trial is expected to last at least two weeks. UPDATE: It ended in a mistrial.
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• Previous TT coverage of the two-year college system scandal. Here
• And Schmitz' arrest. Entry
• Corruption in Community Colleges in Alabama. Entry
• Corruption in Education (in Alabama) Entry Schmitz is among 43 legislators The News identified who had financial ties to two-year colleges from 2002 to 2006. The legislators, their close relatives or businesses received work from the system during the period, in most cases after the lawmakers were elected.
• A newspaper investigation found 13 legislators who were presently employed in Alabama community college system.

FEDERAL INVESTIGATION A federal investigation of the two-year system has resulted in agreements to plead guilty by a former state representative and a former two-year college chancellor. Two current legislators have been charged and are awaiting trial while a grand jury in Birmingham continues to review the colleges. Previous TT coverage. Entry and Entry and Entry

ARKANSAS

Hermitage School District
August 1, 2008 - Former Hermitage School District Superintendent John Jordan, former treasurer Nancy Risher and former construction superintendent James Ederington have each been charged with a felony count of violating ethical guidelines and prohibitions for educators, and another felony count of fraudulent use of school district funds.

The defendants are accused of secretly moving $ 91,753 through other companies and people to pay employees at Ederington’s company, Ederington Contracting.

The district paid three companies in excess of what they were owed, and those companies diverted some of the money to Ederington. In May, auditors found the districtand its superintendent failed to follow proper bidding laws and tried to funnel money to Ederington to skirt the ethics law. In all, the audit found the district improperly expended $ 157, 866, of which Ederington ultimately received $ 91, 753.

Jordan resigned in September. Risher was fired in June.
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WE FOUND the Hermitage School District is rated 3 at GreatSchools.net The district has 2 schools with 547 students. Total per pupil expenditures in the district is $9,671 compared to $7,722 statewide.

Sixty-seven percent of the students in the district are eligible for a free or reduced-price lunch program. The median household income in Hermitage is $21,757, compared to the state average of $38,588 and the U.S. national average of $49,199.

The building projects at Hermitage were among hundreds that school districts embarked upon beginning in 2005, as part of the state response to the Arkansas Supreme Court decision that Arkansas' public education system was inadequate and not fairly funded.

A trial by your peers

A jury trial by your peers is bound to lead to problems when you live in New Jersey.

"Rarely had there been such a chasm between how the government and a judge viewed the same case." - Star-Ledger

Feb 29, 2008 - Trying to find a jury for a 2-3 month trial of Newark Mayor Sharpe James hasn't been easy for the court as two people told U.S. District Judge William Martini they didn't want to leave their jobs for the two-to-three month duration of the trial even though they would still receive their salaries. One included a teacher to whom the judge lectured.

About 90 minutes later, Martini interviewed a Ridgewood music teacher, who said although his school district would continue to pay his salary, he didn't feel comfortable being away from his students' lessons and performances.

``A big part of our educational system is teaching students the importance of civic duty,'' Martini gently reminded the Pompton Plains resident.
``I would feel more comfortable being there,'' the potential juror told the judge, who unsuccessfully tried to change his mind.

``Explain that to the political science teachers in your school system. I mean that,'' Martini said as he excused the teacher.

TT - It's New Jersey, for God's sake! These people voted for Sharpe James. Lecturing them about civic responsibility is a wasted effort. James, is also a Democratic state Senator. [Holding two elected offices has been a tradition in N.J.]

SENTENCED (Sorta) July 31, 2008 - Sharpe James was sentenced to prison for 27 months at a (as described by the New York Times,)

simmering five-hour hearing in which he rebuked the prosecution for “heartlessly” adhering to a bureaucratic form of justice. The prosecution had asked for 20 years.

BIZARRE comments by the judge.

In rendering the sentence, Judge William J. Martini of United States District Court blistered the prosecution, saying he was “shocked and disappointed” by the sentencing request and questioning the contention that the James administration had been corrupt for years.

“Don’t talk about a history of corruption unless you can prove it,” Judge Martini, a former Republican congressman, scolded Judith H. Germano, the chief prosecutor in the case. “I don’t want to hear these allegations of a corrupt administration, he’s all-powerful, he didn’t do any good. I’m supposed to throw out the history of a man’s life for misconduct he committed at age 69?”

TT - Well, actually, you should. A lifetime of service is no defense in a criminal court and it should not be a factor in sentencing, not if there is equal justice under our laws. Otherwise, public service is a license to break the law. Federal sentencing guidelines called for a prison term of between roughly 10 to 15 years, according to a report by the U.S. Probation Department.

Judge Martini was a one-term Congressman who was appointed to the Federal court in 2002 by President Bush.

See Parole Board member praises Sharpe James as role model (July 25)
See Asbury Park press editorial calling for a long sentence for James. (July 26)
See Parole board member once worked as aide to Mayor James (July 28
See The Record editorial "Editorial: Catch and release" (July 31)

See Cast of characters in the trial of ex-Newark mayor
One of James' attorneys is married to author and columnist Anna Quindlen. The other defended top aide to James, Jackie R. Mattison, in 1997. Mattison got 41 months in federal prison for accepting $17,000 in bribes to steer city contracts to an insurance broker, who was also convicted. Other clients included men convicted of being mobsters. [Mattison was also a New Jersey State Assemblyman during that period that he was Chief of Staff for James.)

See James sentence points to shift in Judiciary (Star-Ledger) (July 30)

Rarely had there been such a chasm between how the government and a judge viewed the same case. James and his attorneys walked out of court almost like victors, while U.S. Attorney Christopher Christie vowed to appeal the sentence, something his office does only a few times each year.

See In Newark, More Weariness Than Anger at Sentence (NYTimes) (July 31)

Mastic Beach, NEW YORK

Financial abuse might be widespread in some Long Island school districts, officials said yesterday.


June 24, 2007 - James Wright, the former treasurer of the William financial abuse might be widespread in some Long Island school districts, officials said yesterday.pleaded guilty to federal income tax evasion. He admitted he failed to pay taxes on more than $500,000 he had stolen from the blue-collar district.

Wright was the fifth William Floyd district official to plead guilty in federal or state court to charges growing out of a continuing county and federal investigation into misconduct in that and other districts. All five have pleaded guilty to state charges.

Daniel Cifonelli, a former assistant superintendent for business, pleaded guilty in federal court in 2006 to federal income tax evasion on several hundred thousand dollars he siphoned from the district. TT - entry

Three other district officials have been sentenced to community service after pleading guilty to various misdemeanors. They were Rocco Dinapoli, a former assistant superintendent for secondary instruction; Dennis Fidotta, another former assistant superintendent for business; and Michael Schildkraut, a former assistant superintendent for personnel.
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TT - Not connected to the corruption in the district, John Monetti, 38, principal of William Floyd Elementary School, was sentenced to 12 years in federal prison (with no parole) for traveling to Nebraska to have sex with a 14-year-old girl. TT - entry

In 2006, State Comptroller auditors identified $6.4 million in inappropriate and unapproved spending at the William Floyd school district. Copy of the audit report and several other documents at the news story.

The William Floyd School District serves 8057 students in 8 schools. The district rates a 5 at GreatSchools.net The district spends $15,374 total per pupil expenditures, slightly less than the statewide average of $15,815.

New Orleans, LOUISIANA

A federal probe into Care Unlimited alleges misuse of money that was supposed to have been directed at at-risk youth, education, a program to teach building and teaching skills to at-risk males, support of pregnant teenagers, and assistance to pregnant teenagers. Misuse Alleged

Now for the bad news.

That's just one of three charities associated with one family in Louisiana. Today the fourth member of the family was indicted. Family

Story of the latest indictment.

Corruption

May 23, 2008 - Making good on their promise to take their fight against the ban on double dipping to the courts, the Alabama Education Association was successful in getting the Alabama Supreme Court to uphold a judge's decision to temporarily block the implementation of the 2-year college system's double dipping ban.

The education association is suing to have the policies thrown out altogether and wants them stayed until the Supreme Court hears the case.

See previous entry on the Alabama teachers union and double dipping in Alabama. As we said before, Alabama almost makes New Jersey look respectable.

Corruption

Double-dipping is the practice of legislators to have full-time jobs as well as their legislative positions. Of course, they don't really DO anything for those other salaries.

May 7, 2008 - The Alabama Teacher's Association is giving up their legislative fight against "a so-called "double dipping" ban" that would keep educators from serving in the Legislature while employed at two-year colleges. They will pursue the issue in the courts.

Democrats Voting in the Senate committee to approve a bill to override the new policy were Sens. Linda Coleman, D-Birmingham; Larry Means, D-Attalla; Rodger Smitherman, D-Birmingham; Zeb Little, D-Cullman; and Quinton Ross, D-Montgomery.
Voting against it were Sens. Tom Butler, D-Madison; Larry Dixon, R-Montgomery; Jimmy Holley, R-Elba; and Jabo Waggoner, R-Vestavia Hills.

The Republican governor promised a veto.

The bill would have allowed public employees to serve in the Legislature and other elected offices and guarantee they could use unpaid leave from their government jobs to perform elected duties.

Critics have complained that the association has used the two-year colleges as a source of patronage and power.
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TT - Ya think? A federal investigation of the two-year system has resulted in agreements to plead guilty by a former state representative and a former two-year college chancellor. Two current legislators have been charged and are awaiting trial while a grand jury in Birmingham continues to review the colleges. Previous TT coverage. Entry and Entry and Entry

Most of the decent newspapers in the state support the new reforms. The Alabama Educator's Association denies that being paid hundreds of thousands of dollars by community colleges while voting on funding for the institutions is "double-dipping." A total of 43 legislators had financial ties to the two-year college system.

Alabama almost makes New Jersey look respectable.

May 23 - The Alabama Supreme Court has upheld a judge's decision to to temporarily block the implementation of the 2-year college system's double dipping ban.

Freeport, TEXAS

Jan 13, 2007 - Aleyda Mendez Garza, a third-grade bilingual teacher at Jane Long Elementary School, was arrested and is being held on $75,000 bond. She was indicted on six counts of tampering with a government record.

Also indicted was Nancy Mendez, a aide to Garza, for on one count of theft, 10 counts of tampering with a government record and 10 counts of bribery.

GARCIA ARRESTED Both Mendez and Garza were employees of Rosa Maria Garcia, the executive director of Brazosport (ISD - Independent school district) special programs division. Garcia was arrested Dec. 8 on a charge of theft by a public servant. She was released the same day after posting $10,000 bond.

Mendez originally reported the allegations about her supervisor’s behavior to police. The money from the voucher was to be used to pay the attorney’s fees for a convicted felon working for the district, court documents state.

Special programs is a department that oversees different federal programs including English as a Second Language, bilingual education and migrant education.

GUILTY PLEA & SENTENCING April 5, 2008 - Rosa Maria Garcia was sentenced to 6 years in prison (six years on each of 10 bribery counts and probation for all eight theft counts. The bribery sentences to run concurrently)

Garcia pleaded guilty to bribery and theft by a public servant in January. As part of her sentence, Garcia received 10 years probation, which will start when she is released from prison, and must pay $42,679 in restitution. She will have to serve about a year and a half before being considered for parole.

During the internal district investigation, some teachers admitted Garcia helped obtain forged teacher certification for them from Mexico that could not be verified.

Garcia had been convicted in 1972 of felony theft of El Paso County funds.

Bishop State CC - Alabama

April 4, 2008 - An arbitrator has ordered Bishop State Community College to rehire fired administrator David Thomas in a teaching post with back pay — a decision that two-year college Chancellor Bradley Byrne vowed to appeal. Thomas, a 14-year college employee, appealed under the state's Fair Dismissal Act.

The arbitrator noted that the two-year system did not pass a policy related to firing convicted felons until after officials began the process of firing Thomas. [TT - which isn't suprising considering the corruption in the two-year system where double dipping and phantom jobs for legislators is the usual means of doing business.]

Thomas was convicted of a felony hit-and-run that injured a child. He was impeached in 2006 from the Mobile County schoolboard for using $9,033 in school money to buy Mardi Gras paradethrows. He was paid $89,078-a-year job as director of adult education and economic development.
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Previous coverage of the patronage system in secondary education in Alabama.

Bishop State Community College is on probation by the Commission on Colleges of the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools.

Corruption

The more you followed the links, the worse the story got.

Jan 19, 2008 - The Oklahoma State Auditor and Inspector Jim Jeff McMahan and his wife, Lori McMahan, a second grade teacher, were both indicted by a federal grand jury on nine felony counts of conspiracy, fraud and racketeering.

The indictment alleges "straw donor" contributions as well as a scheme for the McMahans to receive bribes and gratuities in exchange for favorable treatment from a co-conspirator in the abstracting industry, which at the time was regulated by the auditor’s office, and another co-conspirator who was an employee of the auditor’s office. .

It is alleged that the defendants received bribes and gratuities in exchange for favorable treatment by Jim McMahan in his official capacity. It is also alleged that during McMahan's campaign for Oklahoma State Auditor, JEFF McMAHAN, LORI McMAHAN and others on McMAHAN’s behalf, received cash, other items of value, supplies and straw contributions which far exceeded the legal limits of allowed contributions. The indictment alleges that McMahan and his wife accepted gifts and gratuities from Steven Phipps, through entities owned by Phipps with former state Sen. Gene Stipe.

Oklahoma State Senator Gene Stipes was sentenced in 2004 for perjury, conspiracy to obstruct a Federal Election Commission investigation, and conspiracy to violate the Federal Election Campaign Act. The charges stem from Stipes' role in Walter L. Roberts’s 1998 campaign for the U.S. House of Representatives. Stipes was the fourth person to enter a guilty plea and to be sentenced based on charges arising from Roberts’s 1998 congressional campaign. Oklahoma James E. Lane was also sentenced, along with Stipe’s personal secretary. (Lane was the former Majority Leader of the Okahoma Senate.) Roberts also pleaded guilty.

WHY IT MATTERS
The state auditor is in charge of the audits of local and state agencies and entities and school districts. McMahan's website says that in his first four years in office, he and his staff have found 200 million dollars in fraud, abuse and waste of tax money of local governments and school districts, among other things.

McMahans indictments found here:
United States Attorneys Office, Eastern District of Oklahoma Press Release (dated Jan 18, 2008)

McMahans Will Face Nine Felony Counts In Abstract ‘Scheme'
The indictment also alleges that Lori and Jeff McMahan attended the Democratic National Convention in Boston in 2002 with money provided by Phipps.

TRIAL June 11, 2008 - Lori McMahan took the witness stand and testified that she that she committed crimes to help him get elected. She said he never knew that until the day the FBI searched their house five years later. She doesn't feel bribed. She also admitted taking $3,000 from Phipps in July 2004 to pay the McMahans' expenses to the 2004 Democratic National Convention in Boston.

Also Tuesday, political consultant Pat Hall, who ran the auditor's 2002 and 2006 campaigns, said he was sickened to learn in March 2007 that Lori McMahan had accepted jewelry from Phipps.

Hall said Lori McMahan made the admission during a "damage control" meeting to determine how to "spin" newspaper inquiries about the auditor's trips allegedly funded by Phipps.

Hall is a defense witness.

The McMahans are accused of accepting more than $157,000 in illegal donations, two all-expenses-paid trips to New Orleans, more than $2,000 in jewelry, and a trip to Boston for the 2004 Democratic National Convention, all bankrolled by Phipps.

New Orleans, LOUISIANA

Since their investigations began into corruption in New Orleans schools in 2004, the feds have obtained 26 convictions out of 29 invidividual indictments.

CONVICTED Oct 11, 2007 - Three were convicted by a federal jury this week of doctoring payroll records in order to scam extra cash. Debra Harrison, 42, an assistant school secretary, and Drena Clay, 38 , a special education teacher, were convicted of violating the Hobbs Act by falsifying payroll records in order to beef up their paychecks, while Walter Tardy, 42 was convicted of lying to the FBI during a sweeping investigation of corruption in the public school system, pre-Katrina.

Three others were acquitted by the jury.

SENTENCED February 20, 2008 - Clay was sentenced to 30 months in prison. Harrison was sentenced to 41 months imprisonment. Both were convicted after a seven day jury trial of conspiracy to commit extortion, extortion, conspiracy to commit program fraud and program fraud.

Harrison was also convicted of lying to the FBI on two occasions. Another defendant convicted of lying to the FBI in the trial, Walter Tardy is scheduled for sentencing on April 16, 2008.

Mastic Beach, NEW YORK

Feb 6, 2007 - Daniel Cifonelli, 72, assistant Superintendent of the William Floyd School District, was sentenced to to "2 to 6 years on the each of the four counts of second-degree grand larceny he had pleaded guilty to in January, 2006, and 1 to 3 years each on one count of third-degree grand larceny and four counts of money laundering." [Newsday Soprano vocabulary.]

He admitted admitted stealing $687,000 from the "beleaguered **" school district. Prosecutors said Cifonelli simultaneously collected both a retirement pension and a consultant's salary from the district, *** stole about $230,000 by transferring money from school district accounts into his personal bank and brokerage accounts. In his 2006 plea, Cifonelli also admitted he illegally collected an annual pension of $133,000 while getting $150,000 a year as a consultant for the district, beginning in 1998 and continuing until he was dismissed by Floyd in 2004.

He is already serving a 2 1/2-year federal sentence for tax evasion stemming from the theft

** From Suffolk Life at the time of his arrest:

Cifonelli's arrest re-opened wounds of fiscal scandal when former district treasurer James Wright was arrested for allegedly illegally writing checks to himself to the tune of almost $700,000.

*** He was paid over $800,000 under a non-existent contract.

See Boston Globe story.

Someone has been following the school scandal at this site.

UPDATE - June 24, 2008 - Found in a story on Wright pleading guilty in federal court to income tax evasion: Cifonelli paid restitution of $250,000 to the district and $440,0000 to the New York Teacher's Retirement System.