CPS seeks $$$ from BBB
Chicago Public Schools CEO Forrest Claypool is demanding that his convicted predecessor, Barbara Byrd-Bennett, reimburse the cash-strapped school district about $10 million — or triple the salary she was paid at CPS and the kickbacks promised her.
Last fall, Byrd-Bennett pleaded guilty to a scheme to get a 10 percent kickback from contracts granted to SUPES Academy, a north suburban principal training company that once employed her.
The woman once affectionately known as B3 was done in by her own audacious emails demanding a college fund for her twin grandsons. In one, she claimed she had “tuitions to pay and casinos to visit.”
Now Claypool wants to throw the book at Byrd-Bennett, using a state law that allows government agencies to go after corrupt individuals or contractors to the tune of triple the amount paid to those criminals.
Triple damages for the $893,000 Byrd-Bennett was paid over three years in total salary and benefits would amount to about $2.6 million. Three times Byrd-Bennett’s 10 percent kickback on the $23 million SUPES contracts would amount to about $7 million.
The fact that Byrd-Bennett never got that 10 percent kickback matters little to CPS. The school district can still pursue those damages.
CPS is also seeking to recover money spent on outside legal fees — it’s spent about $300,000 to date — and compensation for internal staff time spent compiling information to respond to grand jury subpoenas and countless Freedom of Information requests. The district could not immediately quantify those amounts.
Lawyers for all parties have been in conversations with CPS, but no offers are currently on the table.
Byrd-Bennett did not respond to requests for comment. Her attorney declined to comment.
As the Chicago Sun-Times has reported, she collects at least $140,000 a year in public pensions. The letters indicate that CPS could also go after insurance policies as well for her and her co-defendants.
The school contracting scandal undermined Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s plea for $480 million from Springfield to solve the teacher pension crisis.
It also prompted the mayor to shake up a Board of Education that approved the SUPES contract and replaced Byrd-Bennett with Claypool, who had just returned to City Hall for a third stint as chief of staff after a successful run as CTA president.
On Tuesday, Claypool insisted that the demand for payment from Byrd-CPS seeks $$$ from BBB: