“Education Dollars: Golden Goose for Administrators”
by Donna Garner
1.18.14
It seems to me that the following are examples of how careless school administrators and personnel can be with other people’s money (i.e., taxpayers’ hard-earned dollars).
Herman G. Wilks, who was the director of the workers’ compensation claims administration for the Texas Association of School Boards (TASB), pleaded guilty on 1.8.14 to federal charges of embezzling more than half a million dollars ($514,400) from TASB covering a period of April 2008 to March 2013. Wilks did this through the TASB Risk Management Fund by creating a bogus company (Medco Implantable Supply) and then submitting fraudulent workers’ group claims for various services and products that were never ordered or executed. Wilks faces 20 years in federal prison because of the 10 counts of mail fraud; he is presently out on bond while he waits for his sentencing. TASB is working with its crime insurance carrier to try to regain some of the funds and says the TASB Risk Management Fund and TASB are still financially sound. [It is amazing to me that the TASB administration could miss such a bogus scheme that was taking place right under their well-paid noses.]
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On Jan. 8, 2014, Beaumont ISD Finance Director Devin Wayne McCraney and the former BISD Comptroller Sharika Baksh Allison were indicted on 18 counts that gained them over $4 Million. They set up a bogus company and diverted wire transfers from BISD accounts into a fake bank account controlled by McCraney/Allison. Then they would write themselves checks. [Again, how could BISD have let such a scheme operate right under their watch?]
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Jerome Oberlton, Dallas ISD Chief of Staff under Dallas ISD Supe Mike Miles, resigned back in May when it was discovered that he had been indicted in Georgia for taking kickbacks while in charge of technology in the Atlanta Public Schools. Oberlton has since pled guilty and will serve 41 months in prison.
(My summary taken from Texas Education News, 1.20.14)
