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Tuesday, April 26, 2011

Your Tax Dollars at Work (For the Private Gain of District Administrators)


Recent court documents reveal that the embezzlement scandal at San Francisco Unified was far deeper than the district had initially acknowledged, the Bay Citizen reported today. According to the documents, the SFUSD department in charge of after-school programs falsified “most if not all” financial records and improperly transferred hundreds of thousands of dollars to community organizations (CBOs) and into their own pockets.

Former Associate Superintendant Trish Bascom, who headed the Student Support Services Department, had several CBOs redirect district funds to herself and some of her employees, calling them “bonuses.” Lilian Capuli, a former district analyst, alleged that Bascom ordered her to falsify grant reports. She also accused Linda Lovelace (another analyst) and Meyla Ruwin (executive director of the department) of instructing her to falsify reports for their programs. Capuli and Lovelace were both fired last year after the district determined that they received unauthorized payments of more than $100,000 between 2006 and 2010. Capuli and Lovelace both argued that they complied with Bascom only because they feared for their jobs and that they accepted the “bonuses” in good faith, believing they were entitled to them.

Sorry ladies, but it’s still embezzlement and you were still knowingly complicit in it. Suck it up and accept the consequences.

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