Must Watch! HBO's "Bad Education" Movie Receives Two Emmy Nominations

The movie "Bad Education" just received two Emmy nominations the other day.

Bad Education is a movie about the true story of the misuse of taxpayer dollars and the deception by some of the administrators in a Long Island school district in the late 1990’s and early 2000’s. The movie may remind you a lot about what happened in the Fox C-6 School District in 2013-2014 and the misuse of credit cards by some of our former school district administrators.

I’ve watched Bad Education a few times already since it first premiered on HBO a few months ago. It’s an excellent movie. It reminds me of so many things that was going on in our school district during Dianne Brown-Critchlow’s tenure as superintendent that I was documenting on my FoxC6Watchdogs blog back then.

Of course, I was looking into several things going on in our school district at the time like the over the top salary being paid to our superintendent, the comments be posted about me online for asking questions at board meetings as well as the ongoing 504 issues in our school district.

No Audio or Video Recordings of School Board Meetings

And, since Fox wasn't audio or video recording school board meetings back then, the public was pretty much kept in the dark about what I was asking our school board and our administrators. School board meeting minutes didn't provide any details as to what I was asking during public comments.

I would bet that if any of Fox’s former school board members watched the movie Bad Education, that it would bring back quite a few memories for them as well. It was at the February 2014 school board meeting when I asked our Fox school board members during public comments how they could approve bill payments without good descriptions of bill payments and without being provided copies of the credit card statements.

Great Scene About Personal Purchases Brings Back Memories

There’s one scene in the movie when the superintendent, played by Hugh Jackman, tells the school board members about the amount of taxpayer money that the auditor found that was spent on personal purchases by the school district’s business manager. That scene makes me wonder if our school board members felt the same way when they started looking at the credit card statements that were received in bulk by fax after I made a Sunshine Request for copies of them in April 2014.

Shredding Documents

I’m guessing that the district credit card statements may have been part of the documents that were shredded by Mark McCutchen, Fox’s former Chief Financial Officer (CFO) during Dianne's tenure as superintendent. Mr. McCutchen abruptly left the district after I made a Sunshine Request for copies of the credit card statements. Mr. McCutchen didn’t respond to the auditor’s questions during the state audit. His input to the audit should have been crucial to the state audit.

Grandview School District Patrons Can Relate

The parents and patrons in the Grandview School District can probably relate to the movie as well.

Some of the administrators in the movie Bad Education and the business manager at Grandview were prosecuted for their improper use of taxpayer dollars.

No one was prosecuted at Fox related to the findings of the state auditor's report that I'm aware of.

U.S. Attorney Told Me They "Didn't Find Any Criminal Intent"

The U.S. Attorney’s office told me in November 2017 that their office “didn’t find any criminal intent” when they reviewed the state auditor’s report, the FBI report and the Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office report due to the fact that our school board had approved all of the bill payments even though Fox's board members weren’t provided copies of the credit card statements. It was suggested by the U.S. Attorney's office that our school board needed to improve its approval processes.

Freedom of Information Act Request for FBI Report

I've made a couple of Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests to the FBI for a copy of the FBI Report related to the state audit. I have a copy of the Jefferson County Sheriff's report and a copy of the state audit.

My first FOIA request response from the FBI informed me that the FBI was unable to identify any main file records responsive to my request related to Dianne Critchlow or the Fox C-6 School District. My second request was made with the actual FBI report number (46H-SL-7854210) provided to me by Jefferson County Sheriff Dave Marshak.

The FBI's response to my second FOIA request informed me that it may take up to 1500 days to respond to my request.

Is that what people refer to as sweeping things under the rug?

Bad Education is a great movie!

It shows what can go wrong when school board members and outside auditors don't do a very good job of oversight of a school district.

https://www.hbo.com/movies/bad-education

If you don't have HBO, you can always sign up for a Free 7 Day Trial just to watch the movie.

Jefferson County Sheriff's Office Investigation Report Narratives of the Critchlow Case

At the bottom of this post is a link to a copy of the complete Jefferson County Sheriff's Office Investigation Report in PDF format for downloading and reviewing.

The Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office (JCSO) investigation was a result of the findings released in 2016 by the Missouri State Auditor from a state audit of the Fox C-6 School District which took roughly 18 months to complete.

The State Auditor’s findings raised a lot of questions but didn’t provide a lot of details. You can view the State Audit using the link below:

https://app.auditor.mo.gov/Repository/Press/2016031684913.pdf

The district informed the community in a June 2016 document that they were currently working on recovering funds from the Critchlow's and Mark McCutchen for excessive compensation as well as misuse of school district credit cards. As far as I know those funds still haven't been recovered.

The Jefferson County Sheriff's Office investigation's Incident Report provides a little more insight than the state audit report

The Incident Report from JCSO does not contain any interviews with former Fox C-6 superintendent Dianne Critchlow, her husband Jamie Critchlow or Mark McCutchen (Fox’s former CFO).

In fact, reading the Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office Incident Report raises even more questions.

As I reviewed the JCSO’s Incident Report several times over the past couple of days, I started highlighting portions of the report that stood out to me. I had been requesting for years in emails and at school board meetings that the district be more transparent.

Because of the lack of transparency, the community didn't really know that there were any issues or problems.

And, because of the toxic office environment, people were afraid to question things that didn't seem right.

Critchlow Had The Board Sign Off On Things

Dianne Critchlow had the board sign off on things. However, it appears that she didn’t always provide the information that they needed in order to perform proper oversight. Like, not providing the board with credit card statements each month in their board packets. Not even the accounts payable person was provided a copy according to the Incident Report.

There’s really so much that could be written about the report after reading it, but it would take hours and hours. I’ve already written numerous times about the issues dealing with the credit card misuse and the difficulties that I had in getting copies of the school district's credit card statements.

I went to board meeting after board meeting requesting that documents get posted to the district website so the public could review them like they do in other districts. That fell upon deaf ears until right before the “retirement” of former Fox C-6 superintendent Dianne Critchlow.

Check Out Page 32 of the Incident Report

Check out page 32 of the Incident Report because it documents how Dianne Critchlow reimbursed “numerous individuals” with “Holiday Days” as a reimbursement for them giving back their raises to the district. It was a good PR piece for the district, but it just doesn’t feel the same after reading the report.

Below are links to a copy of the Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office Incident Report related to the investigation of the Fox C-6 State Audit Findings and Dianne Critchlow. I removed 3 pages from the original Incident Report that I was provided from JCSO. The 3 pages removed were the Persons portion of the report. Those pages did not contain any narrative. The Persons pages only contained information such as name, address, SSN (redacted by JCSO), DOB (redacted by JCSO), age, gender, telephone # (redacted by JCSO), weight, height, hair color, eye color and drivers license number.

The Jefferson County Sheriff's Office Incident Report is part of what the prosecuting attorneys reviewed when deciding whether or not any criminal charges should be filed in the case.

Highlighted Version of 

Jefferson County Sheriff's Office Incident Report

Fox C-6 Auditee's Response Highlights from the May 2016 Missouri State Auditor's Report

It's been nearly a year since the scathing results of the Fox C-6 School District audit by Missouri State Auditor Nicole Galloway were released to the public.

So far, no criminal charges have been filed and it appears that no taxpayer dollars have been recovered since the audit was released on May 25, 2016.

The Fox C-6 School District website has a webpage dedicated to the 2016 Missouri State Audit. It contains a link to the 2016 Missouri State Audit and a short timeline of what's happened since a state audit was requested in August 2014.

The webpage includes a link to a letter from Jefferson County Prosecuting Attorney Forrest Wegge to the school board on June 2, 2016 informing the school board that he requested a "complete criminal investigation into the various allegations contained within said audit".

The webpage also includes a link to Forrest Wegge's July 14, 2016 press release stating that he was referring the investigation to the United States Attorney's Office for further investigation.

You can view the district's State Audit webpage here:
https://www.fox.k12.mo.us/about_us/state_audit


Auditee Responses
The State Audit Report includes Auditee's Responses from the Fox C-6 Board of Education and District Administration in response to the State Auditor's Recommendations.

Below are only a few highlights from the District's Auditee's Responses as found in the 2016 State Auditor's report:

"The Fox C-6 Board of Education and District Administration agree with this recommendation. Implementation of new procedures to accurately determine the rate of compensation for the Superintendent and properly adopt a Superintendent contract were in place by December 2014. These new procedures comply with the recommendation. 

The audit findings are critical of the $260,598 salary paid to Dianne Critchlow and other administrators during 2013-2014, including that Critchlow's salary was substantial when compared to Superintendents of other districts and was not properly documented. By comparison, the 2015-2016 salary for Dr. Jim Wipke of $175,000 is competitive for a district the size and complexity of Fox C-6 Schools and is properly documented.

The District believes that most of the irregularities regarding former Superintendent Dianne Critchlow's contracts identified by the audit findings resulted primarily from acts of Dianne Critchlow and acts or omissions of persons holding the post of Chief Financial Officer, namely James Berblinger, or his successor Mark McCutchen. Fox C-6 Board of Education expects staff to properly implement all Board decisions. The Board of Education disapproves both the acts or omissions that (1) increased Critchlow's compensation without Board action and (2) compensated Dianne Critchlow greater than provided within her approved contracts Critchlow, Berblinger and McCutchen are no longer employed by Fox C-6 Schools.

The Board of Education intends to consider the following actions:
(1) seek recovery of the unauthorized compensation paid to Dianne Critchlow, (2) notify the Public School Retirement System (PSRS) about the unauthorized compensation to determine whether correction or forfeiture of pension benefits being paid to Dianne Critchlow is warranted, and (3) submit the record of unauthorized compensation to the Jefferson County Prosecuting Attorney's Office to determine whether prosecution is warranted. 

The District is committed to maintaining full compliance with the recommendation."

...

"As teaching jobs continue to be scarce, and as Fox C-6 budgets continue to be strained, the school board has an even greater responsibility to make sure the most highly qualified people land the few jobs available. School board members and the Superintendent doing the hiring have a fiduciary responsibility to the community to hire the best talent for the money. Under these circumstances, it is completely justified for the District to maintain its new hiring practices and strong anti-nepotism policy, which exceeds the provisions of the Missouri Constitution.

The audit criticizes the District for failing to follow proper protocols in the hiring process and in sections 1.3 and 1.4 focuses on unauthorized and unwarranted job promotions by the former superintendent, Dianne Critchlow, of her husband Jamie Critchlow. These job promotions and rates of compensation were without Board approval according to the audit. The reported findings indicate $88,751 in excess compensation paid to Jamie Critchlow. After fringe costs are added, the cost to the District rises to approximately $102,900.

The Board of Education disapproves of both (1) Dianne Critchlow's apparent disregard of Board procedures and authority; and (2) enrichment of Dianne Critchlow's husband with District financial resources. Jamie Critchlow and Dianne Critchlow are no longer employed by Fox C-6 Schools.

The Board of Education intends to consider the following actions:

(1) seek recovery of the unauthorized compensation paid to Jamie Critchlow, (2) notify the PSRS about the unauthorized compensation to determine whether correction of pension benefits relating to Jamie Critchlow is warranted, and (3) submit the record of unauthorized compensation to the Jefferson County Prosecuting Attorney's Office to determine whether prosecution is warranted."

...

"The audit criticizes the District for failing to follow proper procedures and focuses on unwarranted job promotions for Mark McCutchen, Jamie Critchlow, and others. These job promotions were not approved by the Board and were often accompanied by unauthorized increased rates of compensation. The reported findings indicate $49,162 in excess compensation paid to Mark McCutchen. After fringe costs are added, the cost to the District rises to approximately $57,000. The Board of Education disapproves of: (1) Dianne Critchlow's apparent disregard for Board authority and (2) acts that compensated Mark McCutchen greater than provided within his contracts. Critchlow and McCutchen are no longer employed by Fox C-6 Schools.

The Board of Education intends to consider the following actions:(1) seek recovery of the unauthorized compensation paid to Mark McCutchen, (2) notify the PSRS about the unauthorized compensation to determine whether correction or forfeiture of pension benefits relating to Mark McCutchen is warranted, and (3) submit the record of unauthorized compensation to the Jefferson County Prosecuting Attorney's Office to determine whether prosecution is warranted.

Subject to the clarifications presented, the District is committed to full compliance with the recommendation."

...

"The audit findings indicate charges made to credit cards held by former Superintendent Dianne Critchlow and her administrative assistant appear to be questionable or improper use of District financial. The Board of Education disapproves of these questionable and improper purchases totaling $96,743 as a misuse of taxpayer funds. This constitutes a violation of the public trust. The District has previously demanded repayment from Dianne Critchlow for many questionable and improper credit card charge that constitute personal purposes, excessive expenditures, gifts of public property, and payments in violation of Missouri laws relating to conflicts of interest. Dianne Critchlow has failed to respond to District demands for repayment.

The Board of Education intends to consider the following actions:(1) seek recovery of the unauthorized improper and/or questionable charges made to credit cards assigned to Dianne Critchlow and her administrative assistant, (2) submit the record of improper and/or questionable credit card charges to the Jefferson County Prosecuting Attorney's Office to determine whether prosecution is warranted, and (3) in the event of a prosecution, notify the Public School Retirement System (PSRS), and/or the Public Educational Employees Retirement System (PEERS) about the potential need for correction or forfeiture of pension benefits."

...

"Dianne Critchlow and Jamie Critchlow appeared to have used taxpayer money for purposes that did not benefit the school district; made expenditures that were not properly documented, or constituted excessive expenditures, or gifts of public property; or in violation of Missouri laws relating to conflicts of interest. The Board of Education disapproves of any and all misuse of taxpayer funds.

The District is committed to full compliance with the recommendation."