Tom -- one thing I was curious about...what prompted you to share this now vs. after doing more digging to see if there's anything beyond the charges/bills. Any communication between Horton and the District acknowledging the charges, providing any kind of explanation for these "erroneous" expenses?
I think a potential pitfall here is relying on assumptions over proof, and it runs the risk of undermining the credibility of this blog (even if that's unfair) and the findings therein. Short of uncovering some kind of mea culpa evidence surrounding the repayment of the $12k, this is becoming something that many in the comment section here (and now elsewhere, like on FB) are just running with based on their own interpretations of limited info. Will be interesting to see if your additional FOIA requests produce anything further. If not, this may end up amounting to nothing more than a nothing-burger since more transparency measures have been added around the P-card.
Couple of thoughts and thank you for asking (edited my original comment):
1) I don't think it matters that he paid it back. If I stole $20 bucks from your wallet but gave it back to you a month later and said sorry, I still stole $20 from you in the first place.
2) The District provided me with a comment that I published in full, which I think is sufficient comment on their end which explains the sequence of events "immediate repayment to the district was requested and received in full."
3) This is still newsworthy, even if there are transparency processes in place now. The whole reason there are transparency processes in place is because I've been writing about stories like this and demanding public accountability.
I'm not sure what "assumptions over proof" you are talking about? can you explain more? I try to avoid that and if I made a bad assumption, let me know. I'm human and screw up sometimes but try to hold myself to a high standard.
Thanks for surfacing this (and everything else). Do you think this policy is sufficient based on what we've learned? A lot of companies with an expense policy give guidance around not just what can be expensed, but what amounts to a reasonable expense. For instance, if it's a meeting with 6 people where you're ordering food, you get the 20-person catering dishes. Itemized bills account for that.
This part is pretty clear though: "It is the Board's
responsibility, through the audit and approval process, to determine whether District credit and procurement card use by the
I think most private-sector policies are much more lax than this, to be honest. Somewhere in America right now there is a Director of Sales taking his clients out to an expensive steak dinner and then blowing a bunch of money on alcohol and it's fine. But public sector stuff is a different game altogether (and it's reasonable to expect a Superintendent making $262k to know this!)
1) if you say "oh my gosh! i used to have a very similar wallet" or something, that potentially would afford you a little more leeway than some more obvious BS like "oh i didn't think you would notice and i was strapped for cash" I'm just curious the circumstances that prompted him to pay it back and how he tried to explain it (assuming there's some record of that?) -- that might be more telling than simply "he let the Atlanta hotel charge the D65 P-Card.
2) I think that's a CYA comment from them responsive to the specific FOIA request, i.e. "here was the high-level problem (in their mind, unreimbursable expenses charged) and here was the solution (expenses reimbursed)", but it doesn't touch INTENT. Can you FOIA communications related to the reimbursement from Dr. Horton?
3) I think the narrative is getting lost. The big "so what" (IMO) is if Dr. Horton repeatedly charged personal expenses to the card, but I think there would need to be more proof of that. Right now, this has the look of he maybe used the wrong card for a week or two at the end of his tenure, but then paid it back right away when it got flagged. Heck, what if that card was at the top of his Apple Pay wallet or something?
The assumptions part is something less under your control, but I think a lot of people in the comments are piling on alleging crimes committed, or that the money is still gone, and we need more info to confirm if this goes beyond just incomptence/negligence. Intent is rather hard to prove, and I think there are a lot of assumptions made (regardless of likelihood of them being right or wrong) in the absence of a longer-standing pattern that extends beyond over-spending on food.
Yeah, I see what you're saying. I'll try to FOIA the communications tomorrow and see what comes back. Will take about 2 weeks.
It's possible that the this is some kind of mistake but some of these things are pretty suspect. If you look at the bills back in May 22, it was full of the same kind of stuff - like a $250 steak dinner in Los Angeles.
At some point, I'm not sure what's worse - continually making the same mistake, requiring you to pay money back or expecting the taxpayers to cover personal expenses? "He's just incompetent" is almost as bad! We paid a guy $262k to run our schools and he can't figure out Apple Pay?
Either way, I'll FOIA the communications - if you send me your email Pablo (email me tom@foiagras.com) - I'll share with you when it comes in and we can chat offline. I really do appreciate this comment.
I have a p-card for *my own business* and I am ultra careful not to mix business and personal expenses, lest the IRS knock on my door. I also have my business AMEX in my Apple Wallet and it's very easy to not mix them up.
I thought more about this question over night and I still don't have a good answer to this. I think you are right and I am right.
I've learned a lot about journalism doing this (I'm writing a book actually) and one of the hardest decisions is deciding when to run a story. Every story, no matter what, has unknowns and you have to evaluate the tradeoffs and context. In this context, D65 has a budget that is totally on fire and a big meeting in September to discuss new financial controls.
I actually think, had I waited until after the meeting, this story would be more likely what you describe - moot and much less newsworthy. But getting it out before the meeting gives the public and the Board (who are readers) information to make decisions and have conversations.
The problem to me, is that a FOIA request takes 2-5 weeks to get resolution. Next meeting is Sept 3. So, there was really no chance to get a FOIA filled before then, so I hit publish - I felt like I had enough information to run this.
Should people be speculating in the comments about Horton? I don't know - I don't really regulate my comment section like the RT or Evanston Now does, so people are free to say what they want (myself included) within some boundaries I've established. I think I have the most liberal comment section policy in Evanston, and that includes the RT, EN and the litany of facebook groups. I think that's a good thing.
Through the lens of trying to foster (see what I did there) the conversations ahead of some big upcoming meetings next month, publishing it now does make plenty of sense. Hopefully you've inspired the financial sub-committee to dig deeper on this issue.
The primary FB group is so frustrating. So much gate-keeping, spin, deflection, etc. Some of the shit that gets called out is valid, but there's a lot of unnecessary trolling, and the admins/moderators don't seem objective enough to help build some sense of community.
I work for a school district and have a company card.
Using it for personal expenses is not allowed. However, once I forgot to switch over to personal card for a $20 dollar Lyft. Once I realized it, I changed the bill to my personal card. It never happened again.
Even if not a pattern, this is next level and beyond an individual oversight.
First, he should have returned the card when he off boarded with D65, and D65 should have deactivated it. So, there is already an issue with financial controls evident here.
Second, how can someone mistakenly use a company card over and over again?
Third, there’s already enough evidence from two p-card reports Tom has pulled, plus this, to indicate a lack of fiduciary care on his part that would warrant a deeper look. Because, guess what, it isn’t allowed - or typical - for an employee of a school district to order delivery from local restaurants over and over again in one month.
Dude! You say “ in the absence of a longer-standing pattern that extends beyond over-spending on food.”.
There IS a long standing pattern of his financial mismanagement and it goes back before he was even hired. In 2012 he was the central character in a NBC story where he was identified as the biggest employee deadbeat that the City of Chicago.
Other outlets subsequently reported on his multiple bankruptcies, so this guy has a bit of a record.
Ahh, I need to clarify what I was trying to get at. It's that I think the story is incomplete, without a deeper audit of his entire tenure and usage/expenses over that time. I'm not suggesting people should pretend there weren't previous red flags, I just meant the most "news-worthy" thing would be (to me) if there are yet-unrecovered funds that were improper expenditures. Absent any significant findings there, I don't think the policy leaves any further recourse beyond getting reimbursed, which it seems like they already did.
These are good questions. I think this is newsworthy for the following reasons:
1. It indicates poor financial controls on the district's part, including questions about their alignment to ISBE's rules governing reasonable spending from the Superintendent.
2. Evidence that has been gathered indicates Horton's pattern of spending was, at best, stretching those rules, and at worst openly violating them.
3. If the District made an arrangement with Horton around reimbursing these expenses to help float a move to Atlanta, that arrangement involved giving a person no longer employed by the Board open access to spend public dollars - and accrue interest on those purchases to also be paid by Evanston taxpayers - while not being under contract to the Board. That's kind of a big deal.
4. There is already evidence of financial largesse given to Horton by the Board and district administration in the form of reducing Horton's contractual kill fee, paying for travel that was largely based on enriching his personal profile, allowing or overlooking perks like expensive meals.
5. The District was essentially bankrupted during Horton's tenure, there is evidence of soft manipulation of financial records to improve the appearance of financial stability at critical times (floating bills etc.), now this.
6. And behind all of this, you have a Board - and specific Board members - who provided endless cover fire for Horton, essentially shutting down effective public oversight, and signaling to him and his staff that they could pretty much do what they pleased, because the Board wasn't going to actually hold him accountable.
7. While also not being forthcoming about how they hired him, what that process was, and what metrics were being used to extend his contract.
8. Even though there was publicly available evidence that he might not be the best steward of public dollars.
9. And in the end, all of this has resulted in an emerging avalanche of financial mud that is going to bury Evanston.
10. While Horton has moved on, leveraging a few "sugar high" initiatives into a bigger opportunity, but ultimately leaving Evanston even less financially equipped to support the very kids Horton claimed most to care about.
Yeah, you're right - the district's own policy basically says that you have to pay it back and you can get fired, which obviously, the second point is moot.
The expenses that Tom pulled into this post are the Atlanta charges for after his tenure, but he linked to the full p card statements the district gave him. There are 5 district p card holders and each was split out separately- for some reason the superintendent had two accounts (I have a feeling maybe a card was lost and the bank did not fully close the initial account before establishing the new one). In any case, anyone can look at the statements to see the type of transactions the superintendent made in Evanston before he left compared to other personnel who had cards (e.g., there was a Walgreens expense in Evanston for a similar amount to the one mentioned in this post).
Tom, Did you see how the recent RT article mentions there were $20k in charges? I haven't added it all up but I wasn't sure what they were referring to. So are there charges that weren't paid back?
I think that was simply the total charges from one billing cycle of the card. In terms of dates, part of it was while he was still an employee, part did not. I would imagine that some of the June 2023 charges were deemed personal and thus reimbursed, while others were considered legit expenses in line with the intended purpose of the p-card.
Biz Lindsay-Ryan is culpable for letting these financial problems grow. She attempted to shame anyone who criticized Horton while he was busy fleecing the district. The board is responsible for the financial and administrative mismanagement plaguing District 65.
Equity does not equal abdicating a responsibility for accountability. Biz - and everyone on the Board during Horton’s tenure - should step down.
And their conduct should be investigated. They basically bankrupted the district and allowed their hired superintendent to steal resources from our kids.
However, I don’t believe the Board has the reflective capacity or humility to step down.
The question is...do you actually *want* them to step down? That only means appointment of someone else who wasn't elected. The only one I'd want to step down at this point is Sergio. He's the board president, was one of the board members responsible for hiring Dr. Horton (and went on to be a major cheerleader and apologist of him), and also has ~3 more years on his term.
As of now, the only person who was part of the board that hired Horton who is actively running for office is Candance Chow, who is running for alderman. She voted for Horton and endorsed the closed process months after she quit the board.
The board would certainly have known about the tens of thousands of dollars Horton owed the city of Chicago as part of his real estate business. The board should have known about his personal bankruptcies had a background check been conducted. If they didn't conduct a background check, then Chow's endorsement of the process seemed even more problematic.
If I were voting for her for alderman I would ask that she explain how she can defend such an opaque process and what does her endorsement of such an obviously flawed hire tell us about her judgment.
In the letter she wrote below, she argues for using the governance structure of the D65 board for the city council, which would be disastrous.
This has come up a couple times so I've reached out to Ms. Chow to comment on this and do an interview with me to address this! Stay tuned, hopefully she says yes, I think she (or anyone) does deserve the opportunity to set the record straight or admit mistakes.
Also, the board at the time Horton was hired was (from the meeting minutes)
That's cool. I'm not trying to pick on her, but I was really disappointed during the last election that Sergio, in particular, never had to account for the Horton selection process.
I do think it is problematic that Chow--like Mendoza, Taynavutti, and Weatherspoon--all quit mid-term. Why would you run for office and then just quit?
If she agrees to an interview, you should also ask she can confirm that the 5th ward school was discussed with Horton during the winter/spring of 2020 as he asserted in his exit interview. That seems to be relevant since she quit the board on Feb 10, 2020.
I don't know how to characterize this as anything other than criminal even if was paid back.
The sheer balls it takes to run up those kinds of charges on the District card is a likely indicator that this was not the first time he abused the card in that way.
If there was District staff that knew about this and didn't blow the whistle on this by at least telling the Board they probably deserve to lose their jobs because they have shown themselves to be piss poor guardians of the funds that are there to educate our District's kids.
While we are focusing on Horton we might be missing what the Board is doing now. 1 the closing of Bessie Rhodes and how many students we will lose then. 2. The talk of closing either Willard, Orrington, or Lincolnwood and the flood of students that will leave 3. The repair work needed at many schools 4 The ridiculous amount of administrators hired particularly in the communications area so “ their” message gets out 5. The updated plans for this new school with new lighting and track and field What amount of money will be available to give the teachers a much deserved raise while high priced administrators sit in their relatively new building able to eat lunch whenever they want, chat with each other, use the washroom whenever they want etc.
Hold on and stay tuned, I have much more important stories I'm working on related to almost all those things! I keep getting distracted by stupid insane things like this story
It's my understanding that the TIF only covers the outdoor track, in full. D65 will be paying for half of the cost of the outdoor lights, which are estimated at $50,000 - $70,000 total. So another $25,000 - $35,000 was tacked on to the Foster School costs. However, in his memo Kirby Callam writes, "This addition will not increase the overall budget of the Foster School project. We plan to allocate contingency funds for this purpose, which we are increasing through value engineering changes currently in development and scheduled for presentation to the Board in September."
Oh boy, even more value engineering. This building is going to be made of so much cheap crap I'll be surprised if it doesn't need major renovations in 10 years.
A question I have always had is how can we know that the huge payments for horton’s security detail and the massive payments to brightlift didn’t involve kickbacks of some kind? I know that sounds conspiratorial but at this point I really do think that the district needs to bring in a forensic auditor for transparency sake at the least and potentially to find some serious fraud that blew up the budget and stole resources from the children and the taxpayers of evanston.
I've dug as much as humanely possible into the security detail thing and come up empty. Doesn't mean there's nothing there but from the view I have, I found nothing interesting besides Horton wanting personal security. It's also worth noting in the security case, that he lived in Skokie - so getting an EPD detail in front of his house wasn't really an option.
As for the Britelift situation - stay tuned, I'm working on that story now. I have a copy of many months of bills that show some really extraordinary billing. I haven't found any malfeasance but I'm looking.
I would assume a forensic audit would also look at wages and taxes paid. I would hope that district 65 has the ability to look in to those matters with in a supplier agreement from any company working with the district but not my direct expertise with the way school districts work.
Im not surprised Horton filed for bankruptcy twice before getting the job here. In any basic fraud course this is the most simple red flag. Don't hire people that have proven they can't manage money to manage 175 million dollar budget. He was unqualified to manage money it no surprise D65 has no internal controls. They should have hired forensic auditor. I would also recommend an internal auditor that answers to the board but I doubt they do it for god sakes we have the listen to board member repeat the shitty sloan process, systems , procedures( it easier to say polices and procedures).
Step 1 - need enough hand-raisers to offer to serve on the board to fill those spots. 3 out of the last 4 times there were 4 open spots on the board, there were only 4 or 5 candidates to choose from. That isn't getting a lot of people out to vote...
I told you he was related to Tiffany Henyard! The BoE will all act shocked, they will condemn this, but they will again shift the blame and say they had no possible way of knowing. They will never accept blame for hiring (and renewing) that guy. I haven’t heard ONE remark from anyone that remotely sounds like regret for hiring him, regret for the closed sessions and hiring process, regret for not demanding access to whatever accounting software they use, regret for any of this mess we are now in. If I lived in GA, I’d be raising a ruckus to see what he is doing there.
Just looked Horton up he got a contract extension in April . Here the crazy quote from that board said “The Board is thrilled to have Dr. Horton continue to lead DeKalb County Schools,” said Board Chair Mr. Diijon DaCosta, Sr. “Since assuming the position last July, he has consistently delivered on his vision to disrupt for excellence. His focus on improving outcomes for our diverse student body through innovative approaches makes him the ideal leader for our district at this time.”
One thing about Georgia is that the level of baseline corruption before he arrived was so bad - at the time they hired him, they were still paying for two prior Superintendents that had left/been fired and sued. I also think it's broadly true here too, before Horton arrived there was an acceptable level of baseline corruption that was baked into the system, even back to Hardy Murphy. I think most parents didn't care because things still mostly worked out and this is reflected in the enrollment data from 2010-2020, which didn't change much.
And then Horton arrives and is disruptive in the way that pouring jet fuel onto a smoldering fire is disruptive.
That’s why Turner looks better than Horton but I personally don’t trust anyone who was part of the previous administration. The internal controls should have already been put in place by her not now for god sake it been over a yr
Horton used this town, this District, & his position of authority to the benefit of himself and his friends. He abused his power because he knew he could. His boss was the Board of Education and he knew what that meant: no oversight; total carte blanche to do whatever the hell he wanted because he knew he could get away with it. He played this town & this Board like a fiddle.
So, now we find out through your good work, Tom, that the Admin and the BoE found out that these mind blowing personal charges were made—taken from the coffers of a public school district — and this Board has said nothing, to this day, to its constituents (us) about this very serious finding and about their remedial actions in response. Nor did they immediately call for that 360 degree audit of everything and anything related to finances and this district —to determine what if anything else Horton has taken from the kids of district 65. My stomach turns at the idea of what would be unearthed.
Bottom line is this: they should all resign immediately, they should call for the state to come in, and if they had a shred of integrity they would demand this a comprehensive full audit—immediately. But they won’t and back on the hamster wheel we will go…
The Board still won't even say his name in public when budgets come up. It's always "Previous Administrations" and so on. I get it that it's always been broken, but like, Goren wasn't using the P-Card to buy himself $250 dinners at Longhorn Steakhouses in Georgia after he quit.
Is there any law or policy that prohibits discussion of specific personnel in meetings like that? I wasn't sure when I heard them allude to discussing personnel in closed session.
It's the reverse of what you describe. They can talk about these things in public or they can talk about them in closed session. There's probably some need to discuss certain issues like litigation or personnel issues in closed session - and they are allowed to do so under the OMA. But there is nothing specifically preventing them from discussing this topic in public.
My question is what has superintendent Turner been doing for the pass year? How is it that she is just putting systems, processes, procedures . Let’s not forget she was the number 2 of the previous administration.
- She wasn't #2 in the Horton Administration. I don't recall what her role was but it was some kind of administrative position overseeing Principals. The #2 is actually still with the District (Dr. Green) and is her #2.
- I do think they've implemented some procedures that are good: in the last meeting they passed a rule saying the board has to approve the checks before they cut them (this is new!) also as of 2023, they actually started posting the P-Card statements publicly, which is how you even know of this scandal.
I do think she's made some mistakes, like hiring and promoting her sister. However, on net, I think she's doing probably the best someone could given the mess - excluding Lori Lightfoot, who is really the only person that can save us at this point.
My question about Turner is the same one I had with regard to Horton's hire: is this the best qualified person for the job.
Given the secret nature of the search it is impossible to know how Turner compared to the finalists. Our only comparable examples are the pre-Horton searches (which had multiple candidates with superintendent experience) and other cities that are currently undergoing public superintendent searches. Just do a google search for "superintendent finalists" and you can see tonnes of cities with finalist pools much stronger than Turner.
This is what happens when the District conducts a secretive search: the candidate comes in under a cloud of concern and suspicion. This is especially the case following the Horton hire, whom anyone with a brain would reject after doing a simple google search.
This is kind of an Evanston thing - look at how the City hires people - they do weird secretive processes too, like the hiring of the recent City Attorney who was an insider. With that said, it shouldn't be an Evanston thing. It makes absolutely no sense to me!
It is a school district thing. The established hiring consultants recommend confidential searches with one final candidate and have for about a decade. There are a small amount of school districts who still haven’t changed to this model and it will continue to shrink.
I've been pitching a story to the NYT/WSJ about this subject - the rotating door of superintendents and search firms is a *VERY* dirty business and essentially a tax on the public
Totally! I just know people who have had to declare bankruptcy after a spouse died to be able to save the house they lived in after so much medical debt. They can’t get credit cards but can definitely get debit cards.
I am not making any excuses for him. Also the circumstances of his former bankruptcies should have been a huge red flag. Just wondering who would dare to charge all of these things to a P Card from a former employer.
I really hope that the district announces a forensic audit of the last 4 years. If they are truly about transparency we deserve to know that things are right. We should all demand it.
At what point does the auditor have an obligation to review the audit reports that have been previously issued and issue corrections -- or withdraw its statements as to their accuracy?
The credit card charges aren't material by themselves, but I wonder whether the combination of this and other budgeting and reporting errors create questions as to whether the district has complied with state-mandated generally accepted government accounting principles.
(Of course, the Board should be asking an auditor to conduct a full audit of its accounting practices.)
As I understand it, every time there was a meeting in JEH, let’s say for 8,10 people, Horton would order as if it was for 20 and then take the food home. I’m not kidding.
Ordering from Grecian Chicken as if you’re feeding 20 for a meeting with 8 people present and then taking home the leftovers….apparently this was done on the regular. 😤
Yeah right??? And at the same time you don’t have to wonder how there were such extravagant Grecian Chicken charges under his tenure —or other places??! It makes more sense if you think that he was ordering way over the quantity needed.
And again, previous superintendents more often than not, BROUGHT THEIR LUNCH.
BECAUSE THEY WORKED FOE A PUBLIC SCHOOL DISTRICT. AS PUBLIC SERVANTS.
The City of Evanston is a good place to compare - I have yet to find money spent on catering despite a much much larger budget and similar types of late-evening meetings.
Tom -- one thing I was curious about...what prompted you to share this now vs. after doing more digging to see if there's anything beyond the charges/bills. Any communication between Horton and the District acknowledging the charges, providing any kind of explanation for these "erroneous" expenses?
I think a potential pitfall here is relying on assumptions over proof, and it runs the risk of undermining the credibility of this blog (even if that's unfair) and the findings therein. Short of uncovering some kind of mea culpa evidence surrounding the repayment of the $12k, this is becoming something that many in the comment section here (and now elsewhere, like on FB) are just running with based on their own interpretations of limited info. Will be interesting to see if your additional FOIA requests produce anything further. If not, this may end up amounting to nothing more than a nothing-burger since more transparency measures have been added around the P-card.
Couple of thoughts and thank you for asking (edited my original comment):
1) I don't think it matters that he paid it back. If I stole $20 bucks from your wallet but gave it back to you a month later and said sorry, I still stole $20 from you in the first place.
2) The District provided me with a comment that I published in full, which I think is sufficient comment on their end which explains the sequence of events "immediate repayment to the district was requested and received in full."
3) This is still newsworthy, even if there are transparency processes in place now. The whole reason there are transparency processes in place is because I've been writing about stories like this and demanding public accountability.
I'm not sure what "assumptions over proof" you are talking about? can you explain more? I try to avoid that and if I made a bad assumption, let me know. I'm human and screw up sometimes but try to hold myself to a high standard.
Have you looked at ISBE reg 100.70[d)? This seems to apply, if it’s current.
https://www.isbe.net/Documents/100ARK.pdf
Oh yeah, section (d) there is quite a doozy. District 65 has a policy in line with section (d) actually:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1DTK6WO87bRW7nscFOTKC5euhATtl_X24/view
Thanks for surfacing this (and everything else). Do you think this policy is sufficient based on what we've learned? A lot of companies with an expense policy give guidance around not just what can be expensed, but what amounts to a reasonable expense. For instance, if it's a meeting with 6 people where you're ordering food, you get the 20-person catering dishes. Itemized bills account for that.
This part is pretty clear though: "It is the Board's
responsibility, through the audit and approval process, to determine whether District credit and procurement card use by the
Superintendent is appropriate."
I think most private-sector policies are much more lax than this, to be honest. Somewhere in America right now there is a Director of Sales taking his clients out to an expensive steak dinner and then blowing a bunch of money on alcohol and it's fine. But public sector stuff is a different game altogether (and it's reasonable to expect a Superintendent making $262k to know this!)
Repeated, knowing unauthorized use of a government credit card for personal expenses could potentially be the offense of “official misconduct.” https://www.ilga.gov/legislation/ilcs/fulltext.asp?DocName=072000050K33-3
You would think!
1) if you say "oh my gosh! i used to have a very similar wallet" or something, that potentially would afford you a little more leeway than some more obvious BS like "oh i didn't think you would notice and i was strapped for cash" I'm just curious the circumstances that prompted him to pay it back and how he tried to explain it (assuming there's some record of that?) -- that might be more telling than simply "he let the Atlanta hotel charge the D65 P-Card.
2) I think that's a CYA comment from them responsive to the specific FOIA request, i.e. "here was the high-level problem (in their mind, unreimbursable expenses charged) and here was the solution (expenses reimbursed)", but it doesn't touch INTENT. Can you FOIA communications related to the reimbursement from Dr. Horton?
3) I think the narrative is getting lost. The big "so what" (IMO) is if Dr. Horton repeatedly charged personal expenses to the card, but I think there would need to be more proof of that. Right now, this has the look of he maybe used the wrong card for a week or two at the end of his tenure, but then paid it back right away when it got flagged. Heck, what if that card was at the top of his Apple Pay wallet or something?
The assumptions part is something less under your control, but I think a lot of people in the comments are piling on alleging crimes committed, or that the money is still gone, and we need more info to confirm if this goes beyond just incomptence/negligence. Intent is rather hard to prove, and I think there are a lot of assumptions made (regardless of likelihood of them being right or wrong) in the absence of a longer-standing pattern that extends beyond over-spending on food.
Yeah, I see what you're saying. I'll try to FOIA the communications tomorrow and see what comes back. Will take about 2 weeks.
It's possible that the this is some kind of mistake but some of these things are pretty suspect. If you look at the bills back in May 22, it was full of the same kind of stuff - like a $250 steak dinner in Los Angeles.
https://www.foiagras.com/p/district-65s-free-lunch-program-for
At some point, I'm not sure what's worse - continually making the same mistake, requiring you to pay money back or expecting the taxpayers to cover personal expenses? "He's just incompetent" is almost as bad! We paid a guy $262k to run our schools and he can't figure out Apple Pay?
Either way, I'll FOIA the communications - if you send me your email Pablo (email me tom@foiagras.com) - I'll share with you when it comes in and we can chat offline. I really do appreciate this comment.
Seriously. I have a company credit card. I keep it at work except when I’m going on a trip and then I am VERY conscious about when I use it.
Our compliance team drills this into us.
Part of the reason this story is important is that it sheds some light on the performance of a oublic entity’s compliance system
I have a p-card for *my own business* and I am ultra careful not to mix business and personal expenses, lest the IRS knock on my door. I also have my business AMEX in my Apple Wallet and it's very easy to not mix them up.
I thought more about this question over night and I still don't have a good answer to this. I think you are right and I am right.
I've learned a lot about journalism doing this (I'm writing a book actually) and one of the hardest decisions is deciding when to run a story. Every story, no matter what, has unknowns and you have to evaluate the tradeoffs and context. In this context, D65 has a budget that is totally on fire and a big meeting in September to discuss new financial controls.
I actually think, had I waited until after the meeting, this story would be more likely what you describe - moot and much less newsworthy. But getting it out before the meeting gives the public and the Board (who are readers) information to make decisions and have conversations.
The problem to me, is that a FOIA request takes 2-5 weeks to get resolution. Next meeting is Sept 3. So, there was really no chance to get a FOIA filled before then, so I hit publish - I felt like I had enough information to run this.
Should people be speculating in the comments about Horton? I don't know - I don't really regulate my comment section like the RT or Evanston Now does, so people are free to say what they want (myself included) within some boundaries I've established. I think I have the most liberal comment section policy in Evanston, and that includes the RT, EN and the litany of facebook groups. I think that's a good thing.
Through the lens of trying to foster (see what I did there) the conversations ahead of some big upcoming meetings next month, publishing it now does make plenty of sense. Hopefully you've inspired the financial sub-committee to dig deeper on this issue.
The primary FB group is so frustrating. So much gate-keeping, spin, deflection, etc. Some of the shit that gets called out is valid, but there's a lot of unnecessary trolling, and the admins/moderators don't seem objective enough to help build some sense of community.
Yes and I appreciate all your comments on this thread! And for that pun, I'd like to award you FOIA GRAS Commenter of the Month!
I work for a school district and have a company card.
Using it for personal expenses is not allowed. However, once I forgot to switch over to personal card for a $20 dollar Lyft. Once I realized it, I changed the bill to my personal card. It never happened again.
Even if not a pattern, this is next level and beyond an individual oversight.
First, he should have returned the card when he off boarded with D65, and D65 should have deactivated it. So, there is already an issue with financial controls evident here.
Second, how can someone mistakenly use a company card over and over again?
Third, there’s already enough evidence from two p-card reports Tom has pulled, plus this, to indicate a lack of fiduciary care on his part that would warrant a deeper look. Because, guess what, it isn’t allowed - or typical - for an employee of a school district to order delivery from local restaurants over and over again in one month.
Dude! You say “ in the absence of a longer-standing pattern that extends beyond over-spending on food.”.
There IS a long standing pattern of his financial mismanagement and it goes back before he was even hired. In 2012 he was the central character in a NBC story where he was identified as the biggest employee deadbeat that the City of Chicago.
Other outlets subsequently reported on his multiple bankruptcies, so this guy has a bit of a record.
Ahh, I need to clarify what I was trying to get at. It's that I think the story is incomplete, without a deeper audit of his entire tenure and usage/expenses over that time. I'm not suggesting people should pretend there weren't previous red flags, I just meant the most "news-worthy" thing would be (to me) if there are yet-unrecovered funds that were improper expenditures. Absent any significant findings there, I don't think the policy leaves any further recourse beyond getting reimbursed, which it seems like they already did.
These are good questions. I think this is newsworthy for the following reasons:
1. It indicates poor financial controls on the district's part, including questions about their alignment to ISBE's rules governing reasonable spending from the Superintendent.
2. Evidence that has been gathered indicates Horton's pattern of spending was, at best, stretching those rules, and at worst openly violating them.
3. If the District made an arrangement with Horton around reimbursing these expenses to help float a move to Atlanta, that arrangement involved giving a person no longer employed by the Board open access to spend public dollars - and accrue interest on those purchases to also be paid by Evanston taxpayers - while not being under contract to the Board. That's kind of a big deal.
4. There is already evidence of financial largesse given to Horton by the Board and district administration in the form of reducing Horton's contractual kill fee, paying for travel that was largely based on enriching his personal profile, allowing or overlooking perks like expensive meals.
5. The District was essentially bankrupted during Horton's tenure, there is evidence of soft manipulation of financial records to improve the appearance of financial stability at critical times (floating bills etc.), now this.
6. And behind all of this, you have a Board - and specific Board members - who provided endless cover fire for Horton, essentially shutting down effective public oversight, and signaling to him and his staff that they could pretty much do what they pleased, because the Board wasn't going to actually hold him accountable.
7. While also not being forthcoming about how they hired him, what that process was, and what metrics were being used to extend his contract.
8. Even though there was publicly available evidence that he might not be the best steward of public dollars.
9. And in the end, all of this has resulted in an emerging avalanche of financial mud that is going to bury Evanston.
10. While Horton has moved on, leveraging a few "sugar high" initiatives into a bigger opportunity, but ultimately leaving Evanston even less financially equipped to support the very kids Horton claimed most to care about.
I don't know, seems pretty newsworthy to me.
Yeah, you're right - the district's own policy basically says that you have to pay it back and you can get fired, which obviously, the second point is moot.
The expenses that Tom pulled into this post are the Atlanta charges for after his tenure, but he linked to the full p card statements the district gave him. There are 5 district p card holders and each was split out separately- for some reason the superintendent had two accounts (I have a feeling maybe a card was lost and the bank did not fully close the initial account before establishing the new one). In any case, anyone can look at the statements to see the type of transactions the superintendent made in Evanston before he left compared to other personnel who had cards (e.g., there was a Walgreens expense in Evanston for a similar amount to the one mentioned in this post).
FYI I pinned this comment to the top because I think this is one of the most important topics we should be discussing!
Tom, Did you see how the recent RT article mentions there were $20k in charges? I haven't added it all up but I wasn't sure what they were referring to. So are there charges that weren't paid back?
I think that was simply the total charges from one billing cycle of the card. In terms of dates, part of it was while he was still an employee, part did not. I would imagine that some of the June 2023 charges were deemed personal and thus reimbursed, while others were considered legit expenses in line with the intended purpose of the p-card.
Biz Lindsay-Ryan is culpable for letting these financial problems grow. She attempted to shame anyone who criticized Horton while he was busy fleecing the district. The board is responsible for the financial and administrative mismanagement plaguing District 65.
Yeah her slides from May 2022 about how criticism of Horton implies you are racist, didn't age well:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1kUmxbTSzNpZtKs6UCJxozf2o4ImmLjao/view?usp=drive_link
Equity does not equal abdicating a responsibility for accountability. Biz - and everyone on the Board during Horton’s tenure - should step down.
And their conduct should be investigated. They basically bankrupted the district and allowed their hired superintendent to steal resources from our kids.
However, I don’t believe the Board has the reflective capacity or humility to step down.
The question is...do you actually *want* them to step down? That only means appointment of someone else who wasn't elected. The only one I'd want to step down at this point is Sergio. He's the board president, was one of the board members responsible for hiring Dr. Horton (and went on to be a major cheerleader and apologist of him), and also has ~3 more years on his term.
As of now, the only person who was part of the board that hired Horton who is actively running for office is Candance Chow, who is running for alderman. She voted for Horton and endorsed the closed process months after she quit the board.
The board would certainly have known about the tens of thousands of dollars Horton owed the city of Chicago as part of his real estate business. The board should have known about his personal bankruptcies had a background check been conducted. If they didn't conduct a background check, then Chow's endorsement of the process seemed even more problematic.
If I were voting for her for alderman I would ask that she explain how she can defend such an opaque process and what does her endorsement of such an obviously flawed hire tell us about her judgment.
In the letter she wrote below, she argues for using the governance structure of the D65 board for the city council, which would be disastrous.
https://evanstonroundtable.com/2020/11/06/reader-calls-for-consideration-of-the-negative-impacts-of-making-personnel-preferences-in-public-meeting/
This has come up a couple times so I've reached out to Ms. Chow to comment on this and do an interview with me to address this! Stay tuned, hopefully she says yes, I think she (or anyone) does deserve the opportunity to set the record straight or admit mistakes.
Also, the board at the time Horton was hired was (from the meeting minutes)
Hailpern, Chow, Mendoza, Hernandez, Lindsay-Ryan, Tanyavutti, Kartha
That's cool. I'm not trying to pick on her, but I was really disappointed during the last election that Sergio, in particular, never had to account for the Horton selection process.
I do think it is problematic that Chow--like Mendoza, Taynavutti, and Weatherspoon--all quit mid-term. Why would you run for office and then just quit?
If she agrees to an interview, you should also ask she can confirm that the 5th ward school was discussed with Horton during the winter/spring of 2020 as he asserted in his exit interview. That seems to be relevant since she quit the board on Feb 10, 2020.
Those are wild!
I don't know how to characterize this as anything other than criminal even if was paid back.
The sheer balls it takes to run up those kinds of charges on the District card is a likely indicator that this was not the first time he abused the card in that way.
If there was District staff that knew about this and didn't blow the whistle on this by at least telling the Board they probably deserve to lose their jobs because they have shown themselves to be piss poor guardians of the funds that are there to educate our District's kids.
May 2023 P-Card Statement:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1V8jUEWtULAepBcBtzssu7ifhB_6BQv4n/view?usp=drive_link
April 2023 P-Card Statement:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/15W-uBhbHxeunL4Sg-_D1UoqeAx523IXg/view?usp=drive_link
I think that's when the Board first started requiring this in the monthly reporting. He went absolutely wild with the food expenses those months.
$3600 just from Good to Go in May. That's more than we spent to cater our wedding. What the heck were they doing at these meetings?!
Maybe we catered a wedding, who the hell knows at this point.
What the hell
While we are focusing on Horton we might be missing what the Board is doing now. 1 the closing of Bessie Rhodes and how many students we will lose then. 2. The talk of closing either Willard, Orrington, or Lincolnwood and the flood of students that will leave 3. The repair work needed at many schools 4 The ridiculous amount of administrators hired particularly in the communications area so “ their” message gets out 5. The updated plans for this new school with new lighting and track and field What amount of money will be available to give the teachers a much deserved raise while high priced administrators sit in their relatively new building able to eat lunch whenever they want, chat with each other, use the washroom whenever they want etc.
Hold on and stay tuned, I have much more important stories I'm working on related to almost all those things! I keep getting distracted by stupid insane things like this story
I agree w all of this but I believe the city is picking up the bill for the track/lighting? I think that’s what I read?
This is correct - the Five Fifth's TIF (which D65 initially opposed vehemently!) is actually paying for it.
It's my understanding that the TIF only covers the outdoor track, in full. D65 will be paying for half of the cost of the outdoor lights, which are estimated at $50,000 - $70,000 total. So another $25,000 - $35,000 was tacked on to the Foster School costs. However, in his memo Kirby Callam writes, "This addition will not increase the overall budget of the Foster School project. We plan to allocate contingency funds for this purpose, which we are increasing through value engineering changes currently in development and scheduled for presentation to the Board in September."
Memo: https://meetings.boardbook.org/Public/Agenda/1247?meeting=648193
Thank you for this, I didnt realize this!!
Oh boy, even more value engineering. This building is going to be made of so much cheap crap I'll be surprised if it doesn't need major renovations in 10 years.
A question I have always had is how can we know that the huge payments for horton’s security detail and the massive payments to brightlift didn’t involve kickbacks of some kind? I know that sounds conspiratorial but at this point I really do think that the district needs to bring in a forensic auditor for transparency sake at the least and potentially to find some serious fraud that blew up the budget and stole resources from the children and the taxpayers of evanston.
I've dug as much as humanely possible into the security detail thing and come up empty. Doesn't mean there's nothing there but from the view I have, I found nothing interesting besides Horton wanting personal security. It's also worth noting in the security case, that he lived in Skokie - so getting an EPD detail in front of his house wasn't really an option.
As for the Britelift situation - stay tuned, I'm working on that story now. I have a copy of many months of bills that show some really extraordinary billing. I haven't found any malfeasance but I'm looking.
I would assume a forensic audit would also look at wages and taxes paid. I would hope that district 65 has the ability to look in to those matters with in a supplier agreement from any company working with the district but not my direct expertise with the way school districts work.
Oh yeah I just realized D65 paid sales taxes on a lot of these P-Card expenses 🤦
Lmao
A day ago the joke was needing Lori Lightfoot to come clean things up and suddenly it's not a joke anymore
Im not surprised Horton filed for bankruptcy twice before getting the job here. In any basic fraud course this is the most simple red flag. Don't hire people that have proven they can't manage money to manage 175 million dollar budget. He was unqualified to manage money it no surprise D65 has no internal controls. They should have hired forensic auditor. I would also recommend an internal auditor that answers to the board but I doubt they do it for god sakes we have the listen to board member repeat the shitty sloan process, systems , procedures( it easier to say polices and procedures).
Well it's important for people to know that 4 board members are up for re- election April 1 2025. We need to VOTE and elect new members.
Step 1 - need enough hand-raisers to offer to serve on the board to fill those spots. 3 out of the last 4 times there were 4 open spots on the board, there were only 4 or 5 candidates to choose from. That isn't getting a lot of people out to vote...
I told you he was related to Tiffany Henyard! The BoE will all act shocked, they will condemn this, but they will again shift the blame and say they had no possible way of knowing. They will never accept blame for hiring (and renewing) that guy. I haven’t heard ONE remark from anyone that remotely sounds like regret for hiring him, regret for the closed sessions and hiring process, regret for not demanding access to whatever accounting software they use, regret for any of this mess we are now in. If I lived in GA, I’d be raising a ruckus to see what he is doing there.
I'm wondering if there is like a bat signal that we can project into the sky that will bring Lori to Evanston?
Just looked Horton up he got a contract extension in April . Here the crazy quote from that board said “The Board is thrilled to have Dr. Horton continue to lead DeKalb County Schools,” said Board Chair Mr. Diijon DaCosta, Sr. “Since assuming the position last July, he has consistently delivered on his vision to disrupt for excellence. His focus on improving outcomes for our diverse student body through innovative approaches makes him the ideal leader for our district at this time.”
https://www.atlantanewsfirst.com/2024/04/22/dekalb-county-school-board-extends-superintendents-contract/?outputType=amp
I would like the Georgians to look at all the excellence he left in his wake. It’s disruptive, alright.
One thing about Georgia is that the level of baseline corruption before he arrived was so bad - at the time they hired him, they were still paying for two prior Superintendents that had left/been fired and sued. I also think it's broadly true here too, before Horton arrived there was an acceptable level of baseline corruption that was baked into the system, even back to Hardy Murphy. I think most parents didn't care because things still mostly worked out and this is reflected in the enrollment data from 2010-2020, which didn't change much.
And then Horton arrives and is disruptive in the way that pouring jet fuel onto a smoldering fire is disruptive.
That’s why Turner looks better than Horton but I personally don’t trust anyone who was part of the previous administration. The internal controls should have already been put in place by her not now for god sake it been over a yr
Go, Tom, go!!
What an outrage!!
Horton used this town, this District, & his position of authority to the benefit of himself and his friends. He abused his power because he knew he could. His boss was the Board of Education and he knew what that meant: no oversight; total carte blanche to do whatever the hell he wanted because he knew he could get away with it. He played this town & this Board like a fiddle.
So, now we find out through your good work, Tom, that the Admin and the BoE found out that these mind blowing personal charges were made—taken from the coffers of a public school district — and this Board has said nothing, to this day, to its constituents (us) about this very serious finding and about their remedial actions in response. Nor did they immediately call for that 360 degree audit of everything and anything related to finances and this district —to determine what if anything else Horton has taken from the kids of district 65. My stomach turns at the idea of what would be unearthed.
Bottom line is this: they should all resign immediately, they should call for the state to come in, and if they had a shred of integrity they would demand this a comprehensive full audit—immediately. But they won’t and back on the hamster wheel we will go…
The Board still won't even say his name in public when budgets come up. It's always "Previous Administrations" and so on. I get it that it's always been broken, but like, Goren wasn't using the P-Card to buy himself $250 dinners at Longhorn Steakhouses in Georgia after he quit.
Is there any law or policy that prohibits discussion of specific personnel in meetings like that? I wasn't sure when I heard them allude to discussing personnel in closed session.
It's the reverse of what you describe. They can talk about these things in public or they can talk about them in closed session. There's probably some need to discuss certain issues like litigation or personnel issues in closed session - and they are allowed to do so under the OMA. But there is nothing specifically preventing them from discussing this topic in public.
Previous superintendents brought their own lunches to work. Think about that. Sigh.
My question is what has superintendent Turner been doing for the pass year? How is it that she is just putting systems, processes, procedures . Let’s not forget she was the number 2 of the previous administration.
OK couple points:
- She wasn't #2 in the Horton Administration. I don't recall what her role was but it was some kind of administrative position overseeing Principals. The #2 is actually still with the District (Dr. Green) and is her #2.
- I do think they've implemented some procedures that are good: in the last meeting they passed a rule saying the board has to approve the checks before they cut them (this is new!) also as of 2023, they actually started posting the P-Card statements publicly, which is how you even know of this scandal.
I do think she's made some mistakes, like hiring and promoting her sister. However, on net, I think she's doing probably the best someone could given the mess - excluding Lori Lightfoot, who is really the only person that can save us at this point.
My question about Turner is the same one I had with regard to Horton's hire: is this the best qualified person for the job.
Given the secret nature of the search it is impossible to know how Turner compared to the finalists. Our only comparable examples are the pre-Horton searches (which had multiple candidates with superintendent experience) and other cities that are currently undergoing public superintendent searches. Just do a google search for "superintendent finalists" and you can see tonnes of cities with finalist pools much stronger than Turner.
Take a look at Bloomington, for example: https://www.25newsnow.com/2021/11/12/central-illinois-school-administrator-among-finalists-district-87-superintendent/
This is what happens when the District conducts a secretive search: the candidate comes in under a cloud of concern and suspicion. This is especially the case following the Horton hire, whom anyone with a brain would reject after doing a simple google search.
This is kind of an Evanston thing - look at how the City hires people - they do weird secretive processes too, like the hiring of the recent City Attorney who was an insider. With that said, it shouldn't be an Evanston thing. It makes absolutely no sense to me!
It is a school district thing. The established hiring consultants recommend confidential searches with one final candidate and have for about a decade. There are a small amount of school districts who still haven’t changed to this model and it will continue to shrink.
I've been pitching a story to the NYT/WSJ about this subject - the rotating door of superintendents and search firms is a *VERY* dirty business and essentially a tax on the public
Totally! I just know people who have had to declare bankruptcy after a spouse died to be able to save the house they lived in after so much medical debt. They can’t get credit cards but can definitely get debit cards.
I am not making any excuses for him. Also the circumstances of his former bankruptcies should have been a huge red flag. Just wondering who would dare to charge all of these things to a P Card from a former employer.
I really hope that the district announces a forensic audit of the last 4 years. If they are truly about transparency we deserve to know that things are right. We should all demand it.
At what point does the auditor have an obligation to review the audit reports that have been previously issued and issue corrections -- or withdraw its statements as to their accuracy?
The credit card charges aren't material by themselves, but I wonder whether the combination of this and other budgeting and reporting errors create questions as to whether the district has complied with state-mandated generally accepted government accounting principles.
(Of course, the Board should be asking an auditor to conduct a full audit of its accounting practices.)
I just FOIA'ed a copy of the audit reports from Baker-Tilly this morning. Give me 2 weeks on this!
As I understand it, every time there was a meeting in JEH, let’s say for 8,10 people, Horton would order as if it was for 20 and then take the food home. I’m not kidding.
One of the receipts included in the document I shared above - the one from Coopers Hawk is for 20 people!
Ordering from Grecian Chicken as if you’re feeding 20 for a meeting with 8 people present and then taking home the leftovers….apparently this was done on the regular. 😤
Grecian Kitchen leftovers sound gross
Yeah right??? And at the same time you don’t have to wonder how there were such extravagant Grecian Chicken charges under his tenure —or other places??! It makes more sense if you think that he was ordering way over the quantity needed.
And again, previous superintendents more often than not, BROUGHT THEIR LUNCH.
BECAUSE THEY WORKED FOE A PUBLIC SCHOOL DISTRICT. AS PUBLIC SERVANTS.
The City of Evanston is a good place to compare - I have yet to find money spent on catering despite a much much larger budget and similar types of late-evening meetings.