Illinois gives $20,000 grants to fraud tutor programs
From Sunshine Review
21 July 2008
The Illinois Legislature has given 48 grants for $20,000 for after school programs.
[edit] Chicago Tribune's investigation
The Chicago Tribune invested the grants and found that only 11 of the grants went to established programs. The money was granted by House Democrats who funneled the money through the Illinois State Board of Education. Over half of the programs were found to be running dubious programs with West Side Sen. Rickey Hendon (D-Chicago) sponsoring them. Of the 44 grants Hendon awarded, at least 21 went to people who campaigned for him or donated to his re-election efforts, the Tribune found.
Some instances quoted in the article of the abuse include:[1]
- In a church on Chicago's West Side, two homeless children fiddled aimlessly on unplugged computers, awaiting their "tutor."
- A woman used her grant for billboard ads that would encourage teens to attend community college, but she pocketed nearly half the money. The billboards have yet to appear.
- The oversight remains so feeble, in fact, that education officials in three cases handed out money to programs where felons, one a convicted murderer, worked with children.
- One grantee promised to tutor on a "dailey bases," another to teach "fluenty in speaking." A third wrote that he'd pay himself $475 a month for a year to tutor children. When state officials e-mailed back that the grant lasted only six months, he replied that he'd pay himself $950 a month.
- The Al Malik Temple for Universal Truth spent its $20,000 to teach children how their birth date and name influence their destiny.
- More than a third of the 48 organizations that received grants were run by people with checkered financial pasts, including those who've filed for personal bankruptcy, owe back taxes and penalties to the federal government, or face court orders to repay bad debts, the Tribune found.
- Mary Wallace, who runs MBC Recreational, got $20,000 to provide violence prevention, literacy, arts and cultural programs to 20 children. However there was no one at her sessions or space rented. Rosetta Dotson, pastor at Walk By Faith, said Wallace didn't run a program there. She said Wallace occasionally brought a few children by for Saturday pizza parties, paid for by the church. "When she says she works with me," Dotson said in the Tribune article, "she means down at Rickey Hendon's office."
