SAN FRANCISCO (KCBS) — A months-long probe of illegal kickbacks by employees of the San Francisco Unified School District targets five current or former employees, officials said. The investigation involves payments from after-school grant funds.

The names of those under both an internal and criminal investigation have not been released by authorities, although several have either been placed on leave or have resigned.

KCBS’ Tim Ryan Reports:

Details are minimal, but longtime school-board member Jill Wynns said the employees allegedly accepted payments ranging from several thousand dollars to $40,000 to do work for community organizations that they were also paid to perform for the school district.

The funds, Wynns said, were not dedicated to classrooms or teachers.

“Does that make this okay? Definitely not. Is this money that we could have been using to avoid some of these cuts? The answer was absolutely not,” added Wynns.

The long-time board member also said that it’s difficult to prevent this sort of double dipping.

“My responsibility is to make sure that we have tighter controls in the future. I will say that we did have controls in place, but one of the things that is difficult to plan for is for people who are actually going to break the law,” she said.

The district’s superintendent, Carlos Garcia, said in a letter to district employees, “To the extent our investigation concludes wrong doing, we intend to pursue all legal remedies available to the district”.

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