In the year leading up to the overhaul of the Chicago public schools’ leadership, the district was beset by troubling instances of fraud and employee misconduct, including $1.13 million in improper benefits paid to retired teachers, systemic abuse of the federal free lunch program at a West Side high school, and a scheme by a central-office employee to use school funds to buy items he later exchanged for cash, according to the Chicago district’s inspector general.
Those are among more than two dozen cases detailed in the annual inspector general’s report released to the public last week.
