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Friday, May 4, 2007
Bribery Bombshell In APS
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
More than two years after the AJC first reported widespread abuses in Atlanta Public Schools’ multi-million-dollar technology program, reporters Paul Donsky and Ken Foskett learned this week that the problems weren’t just a result of gross mismanagement. Some of the activities were actually illegal.
Turns out the school system’s former technology director was on the take — raking in more than $300,000 in bribes from companies looking to do business with APS, which was flush with cash from a federal program that provided high-speed Internet service and computers to schools with large numbers of poverty-stricken students.
According to Donsky and Foskett’s story, Arthur Scott and his wife, Evelyn Myers Scott, who also worked in Atlanta’s technology department, used a shell company to funnel kickbacks — which conveniently paid for the couple’s wedding, new house and other personal expenses.
Both pleaded guilty Wednesday to federal corruption charges.
Scott left APS years ago, and he abruptly resigned from the technology director’s job in Decatur city schools in March. His wife also no longer works in APS. But, certainly, this can’t help the perennially embattled school system’s reputation, can it?
UPDATE: In other grand jury news, Clayton County Public Schools officials were recently chided for being poor stewards of taxpayer money. Last fall, system officials spent $18 million in a convoluted real estate deal in which the land purchased was valued at just $8.3 million.
