Lost and stolen electronic devices are costing Chicago Public Schools dearly, report says
CHICAGO (CBS) -- Thousands of electronic devices belonging to the Chicago Public Schools ended up overseas after being lost and stolen, according to a new report from the CPS Office of the Inspector General.
At the height of the COVID-19 pandemic when kids were learning from home, lost and stolen device numbers skyrocketed. But nearly five years later, lost and stolen electronic devices remain an issue that is costing CPS a lot of money when the school district is facing major budget issues.
Altogether, tens of thousands of laptops, iPads, and cellphone hot spots were lost or stolen during the 2023-2024 school year.
Thousands of those devices—bought and paid for with Chicagoans' tax dollars—have ended up in other countries.
A total of 8,346 devices were detected outside of Illinois. A majority of them ended up overseas in 140 countries—including Azerbaijan, Barbados, China, Ethiopia, Jordan and Nicaragua.
The OIG report found CPS' "entire inventory process suffered from a lack of accountability"—recommending the district resolve asset management issues, since it is paying for geo-tracking services it "barely used."
CBS News Chicago asked the CPS OIG's office what is being done to address the thousands of devices detected overseas.
"A concerning result," said CPS OIG Philip Wagenknecht, "and it's something that the district is looking into, and the Office of the Inspector General is going to be speaking with the district about and looking into as well."
Last year, the OIG estimated CPS lost more than $23 million in devices. This year, no dollar amount has yet been specified.
Meanwhile, the OIG also found that electronic devices were sometimes marked lost or stolen when they had been sitting in schools all along.
"In response to our report, CPS is now notifying students and staff that their devices are thought to be missing before finalizing the audit report so that those students and staff have the opportunity to produce those items in those cases when they were mistakenly marked lost or stolen," Wagenknecht wrote. "That wasn't happening before."
Further, Wagenknecht said, CPS did little to hold students and staff accountable.
"We obviously recommended that CPS do more to hold those people accountable," Wagenknecht wrote. "My understanding is that CPS is still working on user agreements for staff and students to sign that state the consequences for losing or damaging CPS devices, but those haven't been implemented yet and we are eager to see what gets implemented."
CBS News Chicago brought the CPS OIG report to the Better Government Association.
"This school system can't afford to lose a penny, and it's losing way more than it should," said David Greising, president and chief executive officer of the BGA.
Greising said the problem seems to run deeper than electronics.
"It sounds like it's more than just devices. It sounds like there's a broader inventory control problem CPS needs to be addressing," he said, "and I'm hoping the IG, after discovering this problem, is maybe broadening its focus a little bit to see if there's even more loss happening in a school system that badly needs every resource it has."
As for what needs to be done, Greising said intervention from a third party is needed.
"Finding a vendor who effectively can shut these things down the minute they're identified as missing," Greising said.
According to the report, CPS does plan to work with a new vendor.
Late Wednesday, CPS released this statement in regard to the issue:
"Chicago Public Schools (CPS) remains committed to upholding all District policies and procedures as well as state and federal laws to best serve our students, families and greater CPS community. CPS appreciates the work of the Office of the Inspector General (OIG) and takes all findings and recommendations seriously. As a system of more than 40,000 employees serving more than 320,000 students, CPS remains committed to proactively and comprehensively training our valued employees and vendors to adhere to all policies and procedures, and to then enforce all policies, rules and laws, and implement discipline as required under law and in accordance with the highest ethical standards.
"In a District of this size, some device loss is expected, but we remain concerned about the loss of any public asset. CPS will continue efforts to streamline the system for tracking resources, including these devices, while ensuring compliance with Board policy. The District continues making changes to our processes, enhancing our systems, and holding school leaders, department chiefs, and designated faculty and staff accountable for following the Asset Management policy. In a district where more than 72 percent of students are from economically disadvantaged families, it is essential for CPS to be sensitive to our families while conducting any device recovery efforts."
The OIG report also highlighted several other problems at CPS. It stated that 36 former CPS employees classified as "Do Not Hire" were hired as sports officials, despite their misconduct allegations involving students.
According to the report, one of them had a felony conviction for kidnapping and at least eight sports officials had been investigated by CPS for "sexual misconduct with students." The report says background checks were not performed for those employees.
Further, the report details concerns over CPS's $500 million structural deficit. The report questions how CPS used $2.8 billion in federal COVID relief funds to support e-learning.
The report also said a CPS basketball coach fraudulently enrolled varsity players who were not eligible to play basketball at the schools where the coach worked. The OIG said this kept legitimately enrolled student-athletes off the varsity team.
Since many of the fraudulently enrolled players lived in the suburbs, the coach's scheme robbed Chicago students of seats at CPS schools, the report said.
