Chicago Public Schools lost over $20 million in electronics in one year, report says
CHICAGO (CBS) -- Millions of dollars have gone down the drain right when the Chicago Public Schools face a looming budget deficit – as a brand-new CPS Inspector General report revealed the district lost thousands of computers and devices in a school year.
In all, more than $20 million were lost – as about students failed to return 77,505 laptops and other electronic devices within a year. This is even though the district spends millions to track such devices.
The underlying concern is that taxpayer dollars will be used to replace them.
The Chicago Public Schools spent a record $124 million on technology in the 2021-2022 school year - and lost $23 million of it. That is the conservative estimate from the CPS Office of the Inspector General, detailed in a more than 130-page report released on Tuesday.
"You can't pin this on COVID," said CPS Inspector General Will Fletcher. "You can pin this on students who are just taking devices and not returning them."
In many cases, schools marked tech devices "lost" when they were assigned to students or staff and never returned – but there were no consequences, according to an OIG news release.
At three dozen CPS schools, inventory data showed each and every tech device assigned to students marked lost or stolen, the release said. District-wide, 27 percent of tech assets were marked lost or stolen during the 2022-2023 school year – amounting to more than one of every four, the release said.
Across all schools that completed inventories, 11 percent of all tech devices were lost or stolen – which the IG said was concerning even to the software vendor for CPS.
On top of the computers and devices lost, the report found CPS wasn't even using the multimillion-dollar system it has in place to track its tech.
"The district spends about two and a half million dollars on software that's meant to track and locate devices, but the district just wasn't using that software," Fletcher said.
The losses are more concerning when you consider the budget shortfall for which CPS is preparing – with federal aid and pandemic funds ending in 2025.
"We want to make certain that the way that the district spends its money – the way that it is approaching upcoming budgets – is made known to the public, so that they can know what the matters are," Fletcher said.
Erykah Nava with Raise Your Hand, a parent advocacy group, said that is exactly what her group is watching.
"What really stood out is just the overall efficiency and lack of transparency around money – especially when we're facing a huge budget deficit at the end of this year," Nava said.
The group's hope is that the IG report leads to serious, permanent change within CPS.
"We hope there's definitely a lot more consideration – not just consideration, but implementation of these recommendations – especially with the tracking of technology and just managing the money," said Nava.
"It's not a good look for CPS," added Fletcher. "What are the recommendations here and have they started working on this?" "They have accepted the recommendations."
Here are some of the recommendations CPS is working on – improving inventory training and search techniques, creating an amnesty period to recover lost assets, and making students and staff accountable for their assigned tech devices.
The inspector general said CPS is already working on those changes.
"In an organization this size, there's always going to be fraud. There's always going to be theft and corruption," Fletcher said. "We just have to make certain we work as effectively as we can to preclude as much of it from happening."
Fletcher said the IG's office be tracking all of this moving forward – including how their recommendations are implemented by CPS.
A Chicago Public Schools spokesperson released this statement:
"As a District, Chicago Public Schools (CPS) take seriously our responsibility to protect the safety of our staff, students and families and to serve our CPS community with integrity, and protect our investments and resources. We take seriously the findings and recommendations from the Office of the Inspector General (OIG) and will continue to ensure our District policies and procedures support the highest ethical standards and that our employees act in the best interest of our students, the District and our city."
CPS did not address specifics on the loss of electronics in the statement, but did add:
"In a District of our size, some device loss is expected, but we remain concerned about the loss of any public asset. Our CPS team will work to streamline our system for tracking resources, including devices, while enforcing compliance with Board policy. We are working to do both by changing the process, enhancing our systems, and holding our school leaders, department chiefs and designated faculty and staff accountable to the Asset Management policy. In a district where more than 72 percent of students are from economically disadvantaged families, it is crucial that we are sensitive to our families as we conduct any device recovery efforts."
The Mayor's office declined to comment, referring questions to CPS.
