Corruption in contracting at FCPS - Cenergistic - fmr School Board and Superintendent implicated

[Anonymous]

Steal from the schools to claim you are 'green' and then lie, deceive and fire people to cover it up - unbelieveable...

From the Daily Caller - https://amp.dailycaller.com/2019/12/17/cenergistic-green-energy-enron

In a lawsuit filed Nov. 1, 2019, the former auditor for Fairfax County Public Schools (FCPS) in Virginia, Goli Trump, said she was fired by school board president Sandy Evans in retaliation for pursuing an investigation into Cenergistic that implicated superintendent Karen Garza as well as Evans herself.

As soon as FCPS created an independent auditor’s office, an employee of FCPS — one of the largest school districts in the country — told her “Cenergistic’s purported energy savings were not true and were in fact costing FCPS considerable sums of money,” the lawsuit said. The whistleblower, known as John Doe in the lawsuit, said he faced retaliation after reporting his concerns to supervisors.

“Moreover, John Doe pointed out that Cenergistic was supposed to receive payments in an amount equal to 50% of the realized energy savings by FCPS; although Cenergistic said it had saved FCPS $5 million, it had billed FCPS $4 million, and John Doe had been unable to find anyone who could explain this result,” the lawsuit said.

He also said “that the Cenergistic contract did not comply with public procurement requirements.” (RELATED: Flint To Rescind Lead-Pipe Contract From Lowest Bidder And Award It To Politically Connected Firm)

Trump attempted to obtain a copy of the contract “from the FCPS contract register, which is supposed to contain a copy of all contracts entered into by FCPS. She learned, however, that the contract with Cenergistic was not available through the contract register, nor could anyone in the procurement office explain why an important contract of this nature for millions of dollars would not be available,” the suit said.

Trump informed the school board’s lawyer, John Foster, about her concerns but requested confidentiality because the ongoing investigation could involve top managers. Foster immediately tipped off Garza, the lawsuit said.

Trump then informed the school board that she intended to audit the Cenergistic contract, but Garza, school board member Janie Strauss, and chief operating officer Susan Quinn told her not to, which she found “suspicious,” given that “the Cenergistic contract presented all or many of the classic indicia of a contract at a high-risk of fraud, waste and abuse,” according to the lawsuit.

On June 17, 2016, a second whistleblower who worked in FCPS’ facilities department contacted Trump and made virtually identical allegations to the first whistleblower. He had no knowledge of the first whistleblower and also provided documents to support his claim, the suit said.

The second whistleblower said he had spent hundreds of hours trying to ascertain the basis for Cenergistic’s bills, but that Cenergistic had refused to explain. “He had no choice but to conclude that the bills and invoices submitted to FCPS by Cenergistic were, in fact, false,” the suit said.

The whistleblower’s supervisor, assistant superintendent for facilities Jeff Platenberg, “harassed him and ordered him to approve payment to Cenergistic despite the fact that Cenergistic’s invoices could not be reconciled or even understood,” it added.

Trump then obtained access to school system emails which showed that “it appeared that Platenberg had been paid to take numerous ‘marketing trips’ on behalf of Cenergistic.”

The emails also showed that “only days after Garza began her employment in 2013, she had been in touch with Cenergistic to discuss hiring them at FCPS.”

Days after Trump obtained the emails, FCPS fired the second whistleblower, and Trump was called in by the human resources department, who told her that an anonymous complaint had been filed against her, according to the suit.

Evans then ordered her not to investigate Cenergistic without approval from superintendent Garza, the lawsuit alleged.

“In a phone call on Aug. 1, 2016, [Trump] informed Evans that she felt she could not do that because Garza was a subject of the investigation and to do that would compromise the integrity of the investigation,” it said.

HR then attempted to physically remove confidential investigative material from the office of the auditor, which is supposed to be entirely independent from the school bureaucracy, the suit said.

“Plaintiff realized the situation was truly becoming critical and began contacting outside law enforcement agencies, including the Virginia State Police,” the lawsuit stated.

Evans prevented Trump from speaking with other members of the school board — collectively Trump’s immediate boss — and Garza told the board that Trump was being placed on leave, according to the suit.

An outside law firm then took over the Cenergistic investigation. “That investigation ended on or about Sept. 19, 2016. Two days later, on Sept. 21, 2016, Garza suddenly resigned from FCPS only two weeks into the new school year and only three months after signing a new contract with FCPS that would last through 2020,” the lawsuit said.

Even so, Trump was fired the next month, leading to the lawsuit filed against FCPS in Fairfax County Circuit Court.

FCPS spokesman John Torre declined to comment for this story, telling the Daily Caller News Foundation: “This matter involves active litigation and is also related to a personnel matter so our policy is not to comment.”

[Anonymous]

Too long, OP. Copyright violation. Also already a thread.

[Anonymous]

Link to other thread, please

[Anonymous]

https://www.dcurbanmom.com/jforum/posts/list/846910.page