CPS LAWYER QUITS DAYS AFTER CLAYPOOL’S EXIT
Ronald Marmer resigned as the top attorney for the Chicago Public Schools on Tuesday, a week after an internal report cited him for an ethics violation in an investigation that cost CPS CEO Forrest Claypool his job.
“I am resigning as general counsel effective December 22, 2017,” Marmer said in an email to colleagues.
Claypool was forced to step down Friday after Nicholas Schuler, the school system’s inspector general, called for his firing for “repeatedly lying” during Schuler’s investigation of Marmer.
Schuler also called on the Chicago Board of Education to discipline Marmer, a Claypool friend and past campaign contributor hired in 2015, soon after Mayor Rahm Emanuel made Claypool his fourth schools chief.
Schuler’s investigation, prompted by reports in the Chicago Sun- Times, found that Marmer violated CPS’ prohibition against employees overseeing work of outside contractors with which they have a “business relationship” — any deal worth at least $ 2,500 a year.
In financial disclosure forms filed with CPS, Marmer said he was getting a $ 1 million severance from the law firm Jenner & Block, paid in five yearly checks of $ 200,000, through 2018.
Internal CPS emails obtained last year by the SunTimes showed Marmer began overseeing Jenner & Block’s work for the schools almost immediately.
Schuler said Claypool and Marmer disregarded the advice of the school system’s in- house ethics adviser, three other staff attorneys and two outside lawyers by overseeing work Jenner & Block was hired to do for CPS, preparing a lawsuit against the state to seek additional school funding. The seventh lawyer Claypool consulted — a Claypool campaign contributor — said there was no problem having Marmer oversee Jenner & Block.
Schuler said Marmer — paid $ 185,000 a year by CPS — altered the membership of CPS’ ethics committee in the middle of the probe of his conduct, creating “the appearance of impropriety.”
“Marmer has clearly displayed poor judgement,” Schuler said. “His involvement in the hunt for his own exonerating opinion was improper, and his changes to the ethics committee were misguided.”
Marmer worked for Jenner & Block from 1978 until 1993 and from 1997 until 2013, state records show.