FBI probing Memphis schools last led by new Boston chief
The Federal Bureau of Investigation is probing the Memphis city schools, last led by Boston's new school superintendent, Dr. Carol R. Johnson. Federal prosecutors this week subpoenaed the district for years' worth of e-mail messages between school board members and staff.
George Bolds, a spokesman for the FBI's Memphis office, confirmed the existence of an investigation, saying that several school board members and other witnesses have told the media in Memphis they are being subpoenaed and interviewed.
"I will tell you we're doing an investigation," said Bolds. "I'm not going to act like all these people are making this up."
Among those being interviewed this week was Michael Goar, the chief operating officer of Memphis schools, whom Johnson announced Wednesday would join her in Boston in December as a special assistant. Johnson said that Goar told her he had been questioned by the FBI, but about matters that predated his time as chief operating officer.
Johnson, who was superintendent in Memphis from 2003 through the summer, said she and Goar are "absolutely not" targets of the investigation.
"I don't think that this is an investigation about staff," she said. "Over the last year and a half, I think, the FBI has been looking at elected officials' roles in various activities that they've been concerned about."
The local US Attorney's Office has been pursuing corruption cases against high-profile state and local officials and recently won bribery or extortion convictions of five former lawmakers and a county commissioner in a statewide corruption investigation code-named "Tennessee Waltz." In that probe, FBI agents posing as businessmen who wanted a change in state law bribed public officials.
On Wednesday, the Memphis schools received a subpoena for reams of documents including e-mail messages between any school board members and staff between January 2004 and 2006; the minutes of school board meetings for the years 2004, 2005, and 2006; sound and video recordings of the school board meetings; nine requests for proposals on school construction contracts issued in 2000; and three requests for proposals issued in 2004, said Linda P. Khumalo, general counsel for the Memphis schools.
The Commercial Appeal in Memphis reported that officials have been asked about matters related to a nearly $50 million school building contract in which a county commissioner was paid consulting fees to help a construction firm win the contract to build three new city schools.
Johnson was superintendent in Memphis when the school board awarded the contract in December 2004 but said yesterday she was somewhat removed from the selection process because the board had a facilities consultant and committee that reviewed it.
Goar did not return phone calls for comment, but he told a television station in Memphis that he was not the target.
"What I've been told is, it doesn't have to do with the district or district employees," Goar said, according to WREG-TV Memphis.
In that interview, he also deflected criticism about leaving amid controversies, including a second flap that erupted this month in the Memphis schools' cafeterias.
Officials overbought school lunches and then did not properly store pallets of food.
As a result, the schools had to throw out an estimated $600,000 worth of chicken nuggets, pizza pockets, and other meals that were not properly refrigerated. The preliminary results of an audit placed the blame on the nutrition director, who worked for Goar and who also resigned last week.
Johnson said she had been talking with Goar about a job for several weeks and that he was not leaving as a result of the controversies.
"That has nothing to do with it," she said.
"Michael Goar worked with me in Minneapolis and came with me to Memphis. The decision to come with me to Boston is partly because we worked together for over a decade and I think he can assist me with some of the transition," she added.
Mayor Thomas M. Menino just learned about the probe yesterday and was unavailable for comment last night, said spokeswoman Dorothy Joyce.
Asked of the mayor's reaction to the news, Joyce said, "He wanted to learn more about it." 