Strange as it may seem, what didn’t happen in Stockton in 2024 was far more consequential than what did.
And what didn’t happen is that no level of law enforcement announced charges against anyone despite years of warnings about the likelihood of fraud, misspending and illegal financial moves inside Stockton’s biggest school district.
With one questionable exception.
This glaring failure may allow anyone who sought to plunder Stockton Unified School District to broaden their assault.
Maybe there is a reason for the lack of investigative results. One area where auditors raised red flags was the roughly $100 million in federal funds kicked down to the district by the Biden administration to address the impact of COVID-19 on elementary and secondary schools.
Biden showered hundreds of billions of dollars on the states, galvanizing fraudsters across the land to come forth and chisel. It may well be that whatever federal agencies are, or should be, investigating in Stockton — the FBI, the IRS, the Inspector General’s Office, the U.S. Attorney’s Office — are consumed by even worse fraud cases that take precedence.
But that is to understand, not to excuse. Corruption can spread like gangrene when the people who are supposed to stop it don’t stop it.
Stockton Unified likely has 31 flavors of things that should have been stopped, but one issue that leaps out involves the 2021 purchase of more than $6 million of air purifiers from a company called IAQ.
Merely rehashing all the financial rules and regulations that inspectors determined district officials failed to follow would fill this column.
Here’s a taste from a lawsuit filed in November by a former school district manager named Armando Orozco. Orozco’s Complaint for Damages alleges, among other things, Whistleblower Retaliation — that he was fired because he wouldn’t go along with the air purifier deal.
“When he voiced his concerns to upper management he was told to “keep his mouth shut” and ‘it’s what the board wants’,” his suit alleges, adding, “On information and belief, members of the board were directly involved and had a personal motivation to grant the contract to IAQ.”
I won’t insult your intelligence by explaining what “personal motivation” means.
Stockton Unified answered Orozco’s complaint with 23 defense arguments, among them that the deal did Orozco no harm, and that his hands are dirty, too.
Orozco, of course, is far from the only person sounding an alarm about the air purifier deal.
State auditors found that the IAQ was neither the lowest responsible bidder nor adequate in other key respects. They found that district staffers had raised concerns about whether the bidding presented a conflict of interest. The Board of Trustees went through with it anyway, on a 5-2 vote.
In this case, as in others, auditors found the district had a hard time explaining where some of its money went.
The auditor investigated Stockton Unified, finding “probable fraud,” and issuing a report that included the chart, below, listing the payments the district made to IAQ.
Notice the fourth line: $829,957.13 is followed by “information not provided.”
The audit doesn’t speculate as to whether any of the $800,000 involved “personal motivation.”
We haven’t yet seen any arrests, indictments, public accountability or even tongue-lashing for any of this from any prosecutor’s office.
Instead, the hammer came down only on dissenter AngelAnn Flores.
In April 2023, San Joaquin County District Attorney Ron Freitas announced his office would join the feds and investigate the school district.
“This investigation will not limit itself to the terms of the report, but will look into any and all wrongdoing,” Freitas said at a news conference. “Every corner will be turned, every ‘I’ will be dotted and every ‘T’ will be crossed.”
That was 18 months ago. To date, the D.A’s Office has charged one person: Flores, one of the only trustees to vote against the air purifier contract.
So much for turning every corner. But that is the story of Stockton’s 2024: almost every ‘I’ undotted, every ‘T’ uncrossed.
The Flores case deserves a separate treatment, which it ought to get around her Jan. 21 trial date.
In the absence of indictments or charges, my fear is that the next round of financial misconduct may be at City Hall.
My concern is that a majority will vote to fire Stockton’s excellent City Manager Harry Black. A replacement would be able to usher into Stockton government a new “information not provided” era.
All that may inhibit this sorry scenario is the apparent ambition of a couple councilmembers-elect to run for higher office. They may reckon it will be harder to move up if perceived as having allowed anyone to shaft Stockton.
But that is just a maybe. Let’s hope investigators in 2025 do their job and bring justice to Stockton.
Fitzgerald’s column runs on Wednesdays. On Twitter and Instagram as Stocktonopolis. Email: mfitzgeraldstockton@gmail.com