CPS FINALLY MOVES TO BAN CLOUTED BUS COMPANY
Chicago Public Schools leaders are poised to finally block a politically connected bus company from being eligible to do business again with CPS — years after the firm was first accused of overbilling the schools.
The move to “debar” Jewel’s Bus Co., which is based on the South Side, also comes a year and a half after federal prosecutors charged owner Jewel Lockhart with tax evasion.
The Chicago Board of Education is scheduled to vote on the company’s debarment on Wednesday. Schools officials say Jewel’s “overbilled the board an estimated $ 3 million” by submitting “false and/ or exaggerated bills,” records show.
The clouted bus company also “used vans instead of buses in violation of its contract with the board and created a potential safety issue for the students transported in those vans” in 2010 and 2011.
It was all the way back in 2014 when CPS officials first alleged that Jewel’s was caught overcharging them and fired the company. At that time, though, city schools officials threatened to ban Jewel’s from ever again getting CPS business but did not do so until now.
And the Chicago Sun- Times reported in 2016 that the Chicago Park District hired Jewel’s to bus kids to and from summer camps that year — despite warnings from a CPS official who said he had “uncovered a great deal of illegal activity” by the company.
Records obtained by the SunTimes show that the Rev. Jesse Jackson intervened with schools officials on behalf of Jewel’s in 2015 and also in 2010. Jackson told the newspaper he called then-CPS CEO Forrest Claypool three years ago to defend Lockhart’s company because he had known her for years as an “outstanding community servant.”
On Monday, a spokeswoman for CPS declined to say why it took as long as it did for officials to move to debar Jewel’s.
Federal court records show prosecutors and Lockhart have been involved in plea negotiations for months. Lockhart’s next court date is scheduled for April 17.
A spokesman for the U.S. attorney’ s office in Chicago declined to comment on the case.
Lockhart’s lawyer, Matthew Madden, also declined to comment, and a message left at the offices of Jewel’s was not returned.
CPS paid Jewel’s more than $ 75 million in the 11 years before the school district broke its contract with the company in July 2014.
In September 2016, federal prosecutors charged Lockhart with cheating on her taxes by “substantially” understating her income “from individual CPS schools and other clients.”