The scandalous facts about the Seattle School District’s floundering SPICE program have been slow to reach the public—which seems to be just what district officials intended. Newly uncovered documents show that they delayed reporting financial improprieties in SPICE (School Program Involving Community Elders) so as not to jeopardize their 1996 operating levy votes.
The documents, released in connection with a former SPICE employee’s upcoming trial for 14 counts of theft, show that officials split over whether to file a police report before the levy vote. In a January 1996 e-mail message, district counsel Mike Hoge complained about “unconscionable delays” in alerting the appropriate authorities of missing SPICE funds. However, when the district’s operations levy failed on February 6 (with a second try at the polls set for March 26), alerting the authorities became a lower priority, for Hoge as for other officials. The district still hadn’t contacted police on March 20, when former human resources administrator Ava Greene Davenport sent this e-mail message to logistics director Dan Gracyzk: “I do not see a problem with waiting until after the levy vote to notify the police…. Please note the lapse of approximately two months from the time we learned of the conduct to the levy vote.” The levy passed on March 26; a police report was filed April 2.
Police admit their initial investigation went slowly, but say that’s because the district originally reported that only $5,000 or less had been stolen. The pace picked up after a state audit revealed that SPICE program secretary Laura Gauntlett had written more than $200,000 in checks to her own account (see “Sloppy Spice,” SW, 1/21/98). But Gauntlett is now charged with only a fraction of this check writing, thanks to the statute of limitations. The district’s two-month delay in informing the state auditor’s office of SPICE troubles (also documented in court papers) may have let her off the hook for some embezzlement.
The district finally hired private investigator James Howe to complete its own examination, but officials were dismayed when Howe noted evidence “that the district was trying to cover up the problems at SPICE.” Other revelations were also painful, including the news that private donations to SPICE were placed in an off-book office slush fund and used for questionable expenses. In a scathing memo explaining the demotion of former SPICE program director Kenneth Camper, former human resources director Tom Weeks said the entire episode “may be a terrible embarrassment for the district and the superintendent if it should be revealed…. The people who have donated to SPICE over the years may be upset with how their donations were spent. Future funding through private funds may be seriously jeopardized.”
The district has owned up—quietly—to some of SPICE’s bigger problems. District officials recently agreed to refund $220,000 for illegally double-billed meals to the city of Seattle. The program has also simplified its financial structure, making its feeding programs self-supporting rather than funded through several outside sources.
Gauntlett’s trial is set for May 26.
