State Auditor Shad White issued the following statement.
Today State Auditor Shad White announced former school superintendent Bill Brand has pleaded guilty. Brand was indicted and arrested in August of 2021 for False Representations to Defraud the Government. Brand falsified student attendance records for October and November of 2020. Brand used a school district employee's Student Management Account without their knowledge to falsify the records to the Mississippi Department of Education. The falsification of records was an attempt to increase the funding provided by the state to the school district.
Kingfish note: Brand was the Superintendent of the Alcorn County Public School District. The press release stated the school district in the headline.
Brand was prosecuted by District Attorney John Weddle. Brand’s sentencing order has been filed with the Alcorn County Circuit Clerk’s office for public inspection. Suspected fraud can be reported to the Auditor’s office online at any time by clicking the red button at www.osa.ms.gov or calling 1-(800)-321-1275 during normal business hours.
19 comments:
Pay your money for a mail order PhD, get a superintendent job making mid six figures, pretty soon it goes to your head and you believe you “deserve” more.
Start hiring legitimately qualified business people to run these multi million dollar enterprises. Not coaches who purchase credentials.
Inspection of said sentencing order shows he got no jail time.
That's right Shad, never miss an opportunity to drag Jackson into this. It's smart politics. What's next governor?
Is Shad fucking serious? Education attendance fraud is the name of the game in Mississippi! K-12, colleges and universities! BILLIONS are at stake in both systems (state and federal dollars - billions mind you). The Mississippi DOE and IHL are RICO cases just beckoning for the right team of litigators.
Legislators floated a State False Claims Act bill a while back....but quickly squashed it knowing how much was at stake, not to mention if the Feds ever do start poking around attendance records. Jees.
AND it's why Mississippi is #50 in everything. Education ain't happening, but an ocean of money flows through the state to God knows where. Wink.Nod.Smile.
It's fraud for one government agency to steal from another government agency? Isn't that how the game's played? It's like "midnight requisition" in the military.
Goobs, all of you. No idividual benefits financially, personally for monkeying around with attendance numbers.
Once again, the low-information (ignorant) crowd is messing with keyboards.
The attendance requirement the state made law is ridiculous anyway.
If a child is getting good grades, they shouldn't be required, under penalty of law, to attend a full 180 days. The whole system is broken.
Lawmakers think everything needs to be legislated.
Thank God Mississippi doesn't have a full-time legislature. They would break the state at a faster pace than they currently do.
State funding is tied to attendance (Legislators have been desperately trying to tie it to "enrollment" for years to avoid this rampant criminal behavior).
Federal aid is also tied to a signed legal agreement to keep accurate records. If those records are found to be fraudulently inflated - not to benefit any one individual - but to benefit an "institution" to support capturing tuition (instead of refunding it) to subsidize unneeded buildings/facilities or any other "capital campaigns" then it is fraud on the state/U.S. government.
"Monkeying around" with records tied to federal funding/student aid is not allowed. Fraud is fraud no matter how small, and it's triple damages for EACH instance. Whoa.
@ 7:46 - So, what's your excuse for why those who are educating scholars at JPS would change test answers?
5:42 - You provided a two paragraph post. Can you back up your claim in either paragraph?
@ 7:46
Actually, school superintendents have been trying to get MAEP tied to enrollment instead of attendance. Schools have to staff based on enrollment but get paid based on attendance. There is nothing preventing legislators from changing how payments are calculated. Of course, the irony is that total funding would not change. Schools would just get paid less per student.
And the further irony, 8:43, is that schools such as Madison and Rankin County, that traditionally have opposed welcoming scholars from JPS, would suddenly be 'open arms' if funding were based on enrollments.
He just copied the census fraud used in mega Cities to get more, more everything.
I'm a Shad supporter but, this is pretty low hanging fruit.
Nothing wrong with the effort because way too many bad actors in our education system. However, let's move up the food chain a little bit.
@ 8:59
Uhhh, no they would not because MAEP does not cover the full cost of a student. The local tax revenue would not follow the JPS "scholars".
So, this guy was getting more money for the district. He never profited himself. How does this end?
If they're counting attendance for non-attendees, where the hell is the, ah, school resource officer?
Why is KF a bitch for Shad. Stacey before him too
@8:43pm
"Why is KF a bitch for Shad. Stacey before him too?"
Because Shad pays for a perpetual add on his main page (see out to the right) and you don't bite the hand that feeds you. We're a nation of whores, especially in Mississippi.
Post a Comment