Over the past month, all you seem to hear dominating the news reports is DOGE. The Trump appointed agency is finding government waste on a mass scale, and politicians are going ballistic in fear that their pocket-lining schemes will be exposed. The problem has also been going on for years right inside our state and county governments, including our local school systems. We hear quite often, "Maryland needs a DOGE." That can happen, but it must start with the people.
The concept of DOGE is really nothing new. There just needs to be people that are actually willing to take a stand to expose the waste, fraud, and abuse and put an end to it. The Delmarva Parent Teacher Coalition has worked since 2020 to expose the waste, fraud, and abuse in our local school systems in multiple counties. Prior to that, there have been very few citizens that have attempted to expose government waste, fraud, and abuse, but have always been railroaded, ignored, or discredited by the local media, which the school systems control.
Ironically, all of these agencies and local school systems have ethics policies, committees, and even whistleblower policies for the appearance of compliance and accountability. Notice we used the word appearance.
Elected school boards have legal immunity, which means that they can't be personally sued for carrying out their elected duties. School administrations also share a form of immunity as an education institution. They always seem to get away with illegal practices, which would otherwise result in jail if a citizen did the same. There's never any legal ramifications if they get caught, because who would ever bring forth consequences that would negatively impact a school that's tasked with teaching children? Only a monster would do such a thing.
We are going to show you the main areas of waste, fraud, and abuse practiced by our local school systems.
Misappropriation of funds. This is a common one, where budgeted items are not spent as intended, repurposing these funds for something entirely different after the budget is approved.
Secret bank accounts that are not publicly disclosed. We have discovered that all school systems have secret accounts that you do not see disclosed in the school system's general fund. These secret account(s) are used to establish a slush fund. Whenever a large legal settlement or excessive insurance claim occurs, it can't come from the general fund. It comes from the slush fund! Some of these accounts contain leftover Covid-19 relief funds from the CARES Act and ESSER that were designed to be allocated to health. School systems have millions stashed away for that rainy day.
Gaming the board's minimum purchase authorization. The school system is required to have board approval for any purchases of $25K or more under state legislation. Administration will take a vendor and make arrangements for installments with the vendor to game the threshold. For example, if a contract is $60K, administration will arrange three installments over time for $20K each. They therefore undermine accountability and authority, making it difficult for the board to discover through three separate transactions over time.
Purchasing unneeded items to consume the budget. The "use it or lose it" game has been practiced for years. Instead of saving the taxpayers money through good stewardship, they exhaust the budget whether they need it or not. In the last hours of the school year, they order things like 40 cases of glue sticks that will dry up over the summer before the teachers could ever use them. In another example, a school system purchased a bunch of overpriced laptop charging stations, which they ended up not using. It's whatever it takes to maxout the expenditures, so that they can artificially justify a 3-6% increase for the next school year. It's a filthy game.
Purposely purchasing from more expensive vendors. On most school vendor lists, you'll see CDW-G. CDW is a company called Computer Discount Warehouse. The "G" stands for CDW's government entity. There's cdw.com and cdwg.com. CDW offers pretty good pricing on computers and software. Surprisingly, you would expect CDW-G pricing to be less. It's about 20% more than CDW on the exact same products. The schools purchase from CDW-G. It's the same with books. They will purchase titles from certain vendors that are double the cost of what the same books are sold for at Amazon. Amazon is also an approved vendor. Here's an example from Wicomico. Why do they do this? Because administrative staff receive kickbacks and incentives for exclusively purchasing from particular vendors. A vacation for two in the Bahamas, gift cards, free laptops, etc. These "backdoor deals" undermine elected boards. Odds are they wouldn't necessarily know about such deals (unless part of them), as these are done under the day-to-day operations of the superintendent, which a school board is told to keep out.
Pay-to-Play schemes by politicians and lobbyists. Despite state ethics laws, some politicians cross the line of ethics by using their elected seat by exploiting the citizens for their own personal gain. This is very disturbing, as they took a sworn oath to protect us. The schools make deals with politicians. In exchange, the politicians are to look after the political interests of the school establishment and teachers' union. These politicians end up magically winning all of the large bids of the school system. Once in a while, administration will occasionally throw in a different vendor (for a small job) to make it look like they are using different vendors. For example, we discovered a news report that alleges an elected politician having flooring contracts with most of the school systems on the Eastern Shore according to public transactional records. There are many state senators, delegates, councilmen, commissioners, and school board members that are using their elected position to indirectly enrich themselves through their employer or family business.
Bid rigging. This is very common. School administration puts out a proposal for products or services. Once all of the bids come back just before the submission window closes, they pickup the phone to tip off the guy that they want in there, by revealing the lowest price of the bids. Once the bid is rigged, they are selected as the winner. In exchange, the purchasing admin or elected board member receives a personal exchange, not always monetary. It can be in the form of lawn cutting service, pest control, roofing, flooring, a weekend vacation, etc.
Gift card purchases to convert tax dollars into personal bonuses. If you look at a school's budget or general ledger, it is common to see gift card purchases. Although they claim to give these gift cards to students, we have never received proof as to who they go to. We filed a Maryland Public Information Act request and they denied the request by claiming that disclosure of a recipient of a gift card would "expose the personal identity of an individual." So much for transparency.
School issued credit cards that accumulate purchase points for rebates. Administration provides staff with school-issued credit cards for making various purchases for the school system. The school system uses credit cards that accumulate cash-back rebate points. It's unclear where these rebates go, because they don't go back to the general fund from which the purchase was originally made. The rebates go into a slush fund or exchanged for personal gift cards.
Adding ghost students to enrollment. One thing that has been going on for years is the enrollment of "ghost" Special Education students. Administration adds them and removes them before 90 days to elude the auditors. Short term students enrolled less than 90 days are not questioned. They receive short-term funding, and it's fraud.
Medical billing fraud. If you have a special needs child, the school will ask for your private insurance policy number. They are triple-dipping by charging private health insurance, the state, and the federal government for the same medical or mental health service. They also bill Medicaid for supplies that a child doesn't need, but for other children that do. This is insurance fraud.
Withholding Special Education services and violating FAPE. Special Education can be very costly based upon a child's individual needs. The school system receives more money for a Special Education student as compared to the standard per-pupil cost. The school system is required by law to meet the educational needs of a special needs child under FAPE, which stands for Free and Appropriate Education. As a result, the school system looks for ways to withhold, pocket, or reallocate funds (sometimes taking from one child to give another) in the name of Equity. This comes at the expense of others. In the end, special needs children often don't receive what they need to succeed and are often exploited. Parents are bled dry in legal fees just to fight the school over what their child should be receiving as defined by law. It's abuse.
Requiring teachers to be social workers to peddle the sale of community services.
Teachers went to college to become teachers. Somehow, they're now expected to be social worker activists, which is beyond their scope. Today, we have what are called
"Community Schools," which are not community schools in the sense of local geographical togetherness. It's about peddling social services (from food to healthcare) by converting the school into a community action agency that provides wrap-around services. It's all about the money.
The food program. In the food program, there's a lot of fraud. Food is big business. Unlike a restaurant, it doesn't matter if they over purchase food or under sell it. They profit no matter what, since taxpayers foot the bill. Most of it is wasted, since half the kids throw out their lunch, and very few actually finish it. If you attend a Title I school, everyone gets free lunch, regardless of income. It's a buffet for all, and the school reports they served "X" number students (greater than those that actually ate). It's a big money-making scheme and they profit off the entire population, even if a child brings their own lunch.
Bastardized insurance. The school systems are not insured as you would think. They are not insured with a national insurance underwriter, but part of a self-insurance pool. The Maryland Insurance Commission allows schools to channel their funds into an insurance pool that has minimum coverage managed by MABE (Maryland Boards of Education), which is a union for the boards of education. If there's ever a claim, it comes out of that pool. The problem is, the face value of those insurance bonds are limited to one million dollars. This goes for their properties and vehicles. A bus for example, carries a one million dollar policy. If a bus turns over and harms all of the children onboard, the claims would be much greater than their coverage. The boards are using their immunity as shield above the one million maximum, and the school system resorts to its undisclosed slush fund if absolutely necessary. You might want to think twice about putting your child on a bus.
Using union-compromised attorneys. Most boards hire attorney(s) that are recommended by MABE. Most of these attorneys are "exploiting vampires" that don't look after the interest of the citizens, but the unethical workings of the school system. They provide the board with poor legal advice, deceive them, and escalate matters to line their own pockets. Administration often uses these attorneys to weaponize against parents, sending intimidating letters of denial as they conspire to interfere with a parent's right of due process. In the end, taxpayers are exploited and children are harmed.
Grade fixing. The schools have been grade fixing for years. Students with A’s and B’s are really failing when assessed in their proficiency. The performance of the school system is artificially inflated to keep the funding coming. Today is even worse with Equity Grading. This is harming children and an absolute fraud. The state allows it, because the scheme makes them look good too.
The Maryland Blueprint. By now we don't have to say much, as we all know the Maryland Blueprint is a political tax sham that won't improve education. The State of Maryland is now in a 300 billion dollar deficit, with nothing to show for. Now, our taxes are going up to finance the failure of their political utopian pipe dreams.
Fellows & Editors
February 25, 2025. DelmarvaPTC.org.
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