A third-party investigation of the Gwinnett County school system's land purchases has recommended 18 changes to the district policies and procedures involving acquisitions but found no evidence of criminal or unethical conduct.
Released Thursday night, the report culminated a three-month review of 95 land purchases for school sites since 1999. Gwinnett school board members and Superintendent Alvin Wilbanks called for the review in April following a series of reports by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution involving the district's land purchases and possible impropriety.
District officials hired Joe D. Whitley, a former U.S. attorney for Middle and North Georgia districts, and a team of attorneys, former FBI agents, and real estate and appraisal experts to conduct the investigation into the land purchases.
According to the 231-page report, the team of investigators reviewed more than 175,000 pages of documents and interviewed 53 people, 32 who worked for the school district.
However, the report mentions that investigators "had no legal authority to require anyone to be interviewed or to be granted access to documents; nor did they have the legal authority to obtain potentially relevant information through the use of subpoenas, court orders, or other forms of legal process."
School board chairman Robert McClure said the investigators' inability to access bank records shouldn't cast any doubt on the conclusions of the report.
"These people are capable of following a trail," McClure said. "They found no trail to follow. And they certainly asked for plenty here."
Wilbanks and McClure said no school district employees have been disciplined thus far as a result of the investigation.
Overall, the report suggested the district make 18 changes -- 12 policy and six procedural -- to its land acquisition process.
Among them, staff members can buy only land that the school board approves; they must offer a reason to purchase land; require that employees sign a confidentiality agreement to keep details about land acquisition secret, and ask appraisers for an explanation if appraisals on a piece vary by more than 30 percent.
Additionally, the report found employees in the Facilities and Operations Department had purchased land in 10 of 16 highlighted transactions based on information in an "executive summary" rather than in a more rigorous appraisal report.
"Use of an ‘executive summary' is not the optimal practice and its future use should be eliminated," the report said.
Jim Steele, chief operations officer for Gwinnett schools, was not mentioned in the report but was at the center of several AJC investigative reports because he had the authority to make final decision on school land purchases.
It wasn't immediately clear if Steele's status or responsibilities would change following the report.
"Obviously this is news to me," Steele said after the news conference. "I need time to think about this."
About the Author
