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| Detroit Public Schools - Another scandal???; $320,279.00 paid to Mystery company | |
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| Tweet Topic Started: Jan 30 2008, 03:16 PM (2,246 Views) | |
| Serendipity | Jan 30 2008, 03:16 PM Post #1 |
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http://freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID...EWS01/801300321 Schools paid mystery company $320,279, records show January 30, 2008 By JENNIFER DIXON FREE PRESS STAFF WRITER Definitive Concepts Company Inc. isn't listed in state incorporation records. It's not in local phone directories. Its billing address is a post office box. Yet the company collected $320,279 from Detroit Public Schools in the past year, according to a list of district vendors obtained under the state Freedom of Information Act.Steve Wasko, a spokesman for the district, said invoices state the company was paid for teaching materials such as writing activity kits, maps and globes, and booklets on multiplication, division and active algebra. He was unable to confirm, however, whether the district received the kits. Tom Watkins, the former state superintendent, said the payments are another example of questionable spending by the cash-strapped district that the Free Press has previously exposed, such as hundreds of thousands of dollars for travel, catered events, meetings in local hotels and artwork. Watkins said funds paid to Definitive Concepts are "more than suspicious, it's stupid. ... It just doesn't make sense. Would you send $320,000 to a post office box?" He said that money "can buy a few teachers, it can buy a few after-school programs, dropout prevention -- things that are desperately needed by the children of Detroit." On Jan. 23, Wasko said Detroit Public Schools Superintendent Connie Calloway, who came on board last July, was "not aware of this company nor its business with Detroit Public Schools. She will direct staff to investigate this immediately." Hard to track down While records provided to the Free Press by the district list thousands of vendors -- typically with phone number, address and contact name -- Definitive Concepts remains a mystery. It is listed by a P.O. box, with no phone number or contact name. Wasko provided a street address and phone number for the business after the Free Press reviewed the vendor records. But when the Free Press tried to call the business several times over multiple days, it got a busy signal or a recording that said the subscriber was unavailable or outside the coverage area. The address on the city's near-west side is for a three-story building with windows covered in a corrugated material and graffiti on the walls. Two tenants said they had never heard of Definitive Concepts. One tenant, who gave only his first name, Steve, operates a folder-making business on the first floor and said he's worked in the building since 1981. "That company," he said, "has never been in this building." On the second floor, the landlord, who asked that his name not be used, also said he had never heard of Definitive Concepts. Calloway told the Free Press in December that since taking office, she has been astounded by problems with district contractors and vendors. She said they included contracts smeared with correction fluid, checks sent without approval and no system to evaluate vendors. Calloway said she believes some of the accounting in the district's $1.3-billion budget is fraudulent. "Every day is a day of financial discovery," she said then. Definitive Concepts also did business with the district in the year that ended Nov. 1, 2006, collecting just less than $180,000. Possible owner? Wayne County records show that Domonique Campbell filed paperwork in 2001 stating that she would be conducting business under the name Definitive Concepts and listed an address on Warrington Drive in Detroit. Property records show that address is a home owned by Sandra Campbell, a businesswoman who has done work for Detroit Public Schools that has come under the scrutiny of internal auditors. According to district records, Sandra Campbell's company, Pacemaker Accounting, received $130,610 from Detroit Public Schools in the fiscal year that ended Sept. 1, 2007. It also received $185,360 during the year that ended Nov. 1, 2006, district records show. Pacemaker provided budgeting and bookkeeping services at various Detroit schools, including Mackenzie and Redford high schools, which were the subject of internal audits. A July 27, 2006, audit of Mackenzie said that Campbell, as the bookkeeper, was allowed to process her own check requests, "resulting in an ineffective control process." The audit of Redford, which covered the 2003-04 school year, said Pacemaker Accounting received $23,250 for budget and other services. Of that, Pacemaker received a duplicate payment of $2,500 and another $5,750 to set up a financial system already in place. It was not clear whether Pacemaker had to refund any money. Campbell blamed the school for the errors. Reached at Pacemaker Accounting, she also said she did not get mail for Definitive Concepts at the Warrington Drive address and that if Domonique Campbell is in business, "it's her business." It was not clear how -- or whether -- the two women are related. The Free Press, despite numerous attempts, could not reach Domonique Campbell at the Definitive Concepts phone number provided by DPS. Definitive Concepts and Pacemaker Accounting list the same address in several public records. State records for Pacemaker Accounting show the same post office box that appears in school records for Definitive Concepts. County records for Definitive Concepts list the same Warrington address that appears in Detroit Public School records for Pacemaker Accounting. According to state records, both Domonique and Sandra Campbell list an address in Farmington Hills as their home. Board members speak out Reverend David Murray, a member of the Detroit Board of Education, recently said he was not familiar with Definitive Concepts. Murray said such spending "blemishes the reputation of the board." Another member, Marie Thornton, said the board should scrutinize the district's dealings with vendors. "People should have a track record of doing business with the board," Thornton said. "There should be some type of performance evaluation on vendors who have performed work with the district. Did they fulfill the contract?" Judy Nadler, senior fellow in government ethics at the Markkula Center for Applied Ethics at Santa Clara University, said payments to the company raise "many, many questions." "You wonder who they are, how they got the contract," she said. "There needs to be an accounting for that. Transparency is one of the foundations of ethical government. ... There is no room for shoddy bookkeeping. There are no excuses that are acceptable. None."The Rev. Robert Neal, whose son is a 10th-grader at Henry Ford High School, said he believes the school district is in transition and must "go back to their foundation ... the purpose is to educate our children. "They should go back to the basics and hire an auditor, and make sure the system is run in order." Contact JENNIFER DIXON at 313-223-4410 or jbdixon@freepress.com. Education writer Chastity Pratt Dawsey contributed. |
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| BoaterDan | Jan 30 2008, 04:01 PM Post #2 |
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How can this be - school boards and school district administration offices are made up only of honest overworked professionals who have only our kids' best interest in mind. This must be a slanderous lie, those teacher haters! |
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| yrraH NS | Jan 30 2008, 04:20 PM Post #3 |
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Man, what a malcontent Watkins is huh.... |
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| BoaterDan | Jan 31 2008, 11:07 AM Post #4 |
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A terrorist, no doubt! |
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