In an ongoing investigation of the illicit activities of the Chicago Board of Education Substance News has definite proof under the standards of the Office of Inspector General to terminate the employment of non-Chicago Residents. Current "Chief Executive Officer" Barbara Byrd-Bennett is not a Chicago resident in violation of Board Policy 08-0227-PO1, Residency Policy for All Employees of the Board Of Education. In documents obtained by Substance News Chicago Public Schools CEO Barbara Byrd-Bennett is a current taxpaying resident of Cuyahoga County, Ohio a Cleveland suburb and former head of the Cleveland Schools.
Barbara Byrd Bennett -- the latest quarter million dollar a year "Chief Executive Officer" appointed since Mayor Rahm Emanuel's inauguration less than two years ago -- may be giving speeches about how the proposed closing of 53 Chicago public schools is not "racist", but she hasn't been in Chicago long enough to know the city. She's also been telling the Board and some reporters how she is insulted by the implication that all of her promises are meaningless because she won't be around Chicago in a year (or less).
But if her choice of residences and her voter registration are any guide to what she really feels, her heart is still in Ohio, not in Illinois or Chicago. As of April 2013, she is a registered voter in Ohio, where she has an opulent home in suburban Cleveland, the city where her controversial financial practices as school chief were questioned years ago.
If Barbara Byrd Bennett were a Chicago teacher today, she would be another exhibit in the annual report of the Inspector General, whose energies are largely devoted to persecuting Chicago teachers for violations of the CPS residency rule. Chicago teachers must live in Chicago, and investigators from the IG’s office routinely are tracking down miscreants who really live outside the city. Having a sham home in Chicago is not enough if your real home is in, say, Winnetka. But there has been no explanation for her ability to rise above the law, and the Inspector General’s office in not interested in bringing her to justice – in the form of firing her for violating residency.
In an ongoing investigation of the illicit activities of the Chicago Board of Education Substance News has definite proof under the standards of the Office of Inspector General to terminate the employment of non-Chicago Residents. Current "Chief Executive Officer" Barbara Byrd-Bennett is not a Chicago resident in violation of Board Policy 08-0227-PO1, Residency Policy for All Employees of the Board Of Education. In documents obtained by Substance News Chicago Public Schools CEO Barbara Byrd-Bennett is a current taxpaying resident of Cuyahoga County, Ohio a Cleveland suburb.
Substance News obtained property tax records for CPS CEO Byrd-Bennett showing that she has paid her taxes this year on the property she owns at 38155 Flanders Dr, Solon, OH 44139, Parcel number 955-31-025. The bill she paid for the $544,600 valued property was $6,168.57. Tax records go back to 2004 on the same property with the same primary owner listed as Barbara Byrd-Bennett.
Not wanting to jump to conclusions, Substance News verified that CPS CEO Byrd-Bennett was in fact a Cleveland resident by further obtaining voter registration records for Byrd-Bennett. As currently as April 3, 2013 Byrd-Bennett is listed as an Ohio registered voter in the 14 US Congressional District, the 24th Ohio Senate District and the 6th Ohio Representative District. The address listed for her voter registration matched the one for her property taxes: 38155 Flanders Dr, Solon, OH 44139.
In determining if a CPS employee is in violation of the residency rules the Office of inspector General uses property ownership records and voter registration records to establish residence. In the case of CPS CEO Byrd-Bennett all the evidence shows she is in violation of the Board rules to be an employee of the Chicago Public Schools. A source confirmed that CPS is in full knowledge of this residency violation.
This is now the second of top official in the Chicago Public Schools that is in violation of the residency requirements.
Chicago Board of Education ignores inspector general's call for revoking exec Tim Cawley's residency waiver
October 28, 2011
The Chicago Board of Education is disregarding a call by the district's inspector general to rescind the residency waiver it granted its third-highest-ranking schools executive.
Mayor Rahm Emanuel had supported a two-year waiver for Chief Administrative Officer Tim Cawley so Cawley could continue living in Winnetka until his daughter was ready for high school. Cawley and his wife adopted the 12-year-old girl from Ukraine last year and didn't want to uproot her so soon.
http://articles.chicagotribune.com/...
Inspector general urges board to rescind permission for No. 3 official to live outside Chicago
October 25, 2011
The inspector general for Chicago Public Schools is calling on district officials to rescind the residency waiver granted to Chief Administrative Officer Tim Cawley, the third-highest-ranking schools executive under Mayor Rahm Emanuel.
In a confidential memo circulating within CPS, the inspector general, James Sullivan says the Board of Education improperly granted Cawley a "special needs" residency waiver because of who he was and not because the position was difficult to fill, raising questions about whether Emanuel or board President David Vitale, a former colleague, influenced the hiring.
http://articles.chicagotribune.com/...
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View the entire residency policy below:
RESIDENCY POLICY FOR ALL EMPLOYEES OF THE BOARD OF EDUCATION 502.1