Two Crimes in DC Charter Schools Case, Only One Gets Punished

In U.S. District Court yesterday, former DC Charter Schools administrator Brenda Belton admitted to an embezzlement and fraud scheme that cost DC taxpayers $649,000 over a three year period:

Belton, 61, admitted to U.S. District Judge Ricardo M. Urbina that she steered about $446,000 in seven no-bid contracts to friends and a cousin and stole $203,000 by paying school funds to a fictitious company she controlled. At the same time, she received $180,000 in illegal payments and kickbacks from friends she helped with school business. The crimes took place from March 2003 to May 2006, prosecutors said.

"Are these statements true and accurate?" Urbina asked Belton after Assistant U.S. Attorney Timothy C. Lynch described the details of the government's evidence.

"Yes, they are true," she answered in a muffled voice.

During sentencing in November, Belton will face a likely term of 30 to 37 months in prison for theft and tax evasion charges. She has agreed to pay restitution of $383,000, most of which will go back to the school system.

She does not have to repay the money involved in the no-bid contracts because the investigation has not established that she directly benefited or that the city got no work for the money. No one else has been charged in the case.

Belton will get her sentence in November, but the larger crime is that lack of oversight.

Belton's crimes could have been caught had there been adequate oversight by senior education officials and the DC City Council. The fact that no one else caught this scheme until an employee tipped off authorities. The scheme seems so brazen, loaded with personal friends of Belton and compounded by lack of oversight from the Charter Board and the School Board. In one instance:

School officials missed a chance to discover a problem, prosecutors' court filings show. The Board of Education was supposed to approve the use of Equal Access Inc. every year; tougher oversight could have revealed the dummy company.

As Mayor Adrian Fenty (D) and DC Schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee continue their work to reform the DC schools, much attention will need to be paid to proper accounting and oversight methods in order to counteract the blatant greed and graft that seems to be an everyday part of the education system in DC.

To my knowledge, no DC school board member or DC school employee has lost their job beside Belton as a result of this fiasco. That is just about as big a crime as Belton's.