Posted on 05/27/2009 4:09:12 AM PDT by Born Conservative
NANTICOKE Luzerne County Community College is the latest entity to be contacted by the FBI. Read more Federal Investigation of Schools articles
The colleges business office was contacted late Tuesday afternoon by FBI officials who requested documents, LCCC President Tom Leary said.
He would not detail the type information the FBI was requesting, saying this was a federal investigation, not an investigation being conducted in-house. Leary referred all questions to the FBI.
We are not conducting the investigation. They are conducting the investigation, Leary said noting the college is complying and cooperating fully with the FBI. The school was in the process of notifying the board late Tuesday afternoon, he said.
LCCC board Secretary Elaine Curry was driving home from work listening to the radio when she heard the FBI requested the information from the college.
I have no idea what this is in reference to. I was glad to hear that Tom Leary is cooperating fully and I will encourage everyone in the college to cooperate fully with the investigation. It is everyones civic duty to cooperate with the FBI in their investigation, Curry said.
Its not known if this is connected to other investigations the FBI is conducting into local school districts and the Luzerne County Courthouse.
This is the first time LCCC has been contacted by the FBI since the larger investigation began, Leary said.
FBI Special Agent Joseph Noone of the Scranton office and FBI Media Coordinator J.J. Klaver of Philadelphia declined to comment on the case when contacted late Tuesday afternoon. U.S. Attorney Marty Carlson also declined to comment.
LCCC has received criticism in the last year for the way the board of trustees handled the awarding of contracts when Ross Scarantino was chairman of LCCCs Board of Trustees.
Scarantino, Pittston Area School Districts superintendent, agreed to plead guilty to federal charges May 20 for receiving money for supporting a contractor seeking work with the school district.
Scarantino spent 42-years in education at Pittston Area and was hired as superintendent in 2005.
Scarantino submitted a letter of resignation on May 5.
Scarantino was removed from LCCCs Board of Trustees in May 2008 when county commissioners appointed five new members to the board to replace others whose terms expired. He was president for two of the five years he served on LCCCs board. Scarantino did not return calls for comment.
Precept Associates was hired in May 2007 as a construction manager to oversee construction of the colleges Public Safety Training Institute.
Under the original contract with Precept, which was not bid out, the school was paying a fee of 8 percent of the total construction costs. This was much higher than other firms received for similar projects. Construction experts said most firms receive a rate of 2 percent to 5 percent.
LCCC renegotiated Precepts contract after the higher rate was divulged. No one was accused of any wrongdoing in the incident.
Intellacom, a security system company, also received a no-bid contract in 2007 for an off-campus closed circuit television system at LCCCs Hazleton, Kulpmont, Shamokin, Berwick and Wilkes-Barre locations. Intellacom submitted the proposal of $191,000. Records show LCCC paid $134,802 to Intellacom before the contract was cancelled because the company did not provide service as promised in the contract.
Pittston Area also had a nearly $300,000 security system contract with Intellacom in 2007.
The Intellacom bids, at Pittston Area and LCCC, were supposed to be conducted through the Pennsylvania Education Purchasing Program for Microcomputers, coordinated through the Central Susquehanna Intermediate Unit. Local government entities can hire companies approved through this process because the companies are supposed to participate in a sealed competitive bid process. This is designed to save the school districts and other agencies time and costs of bidding and reviewing the bids locally.
Intellacom and Precept officials have not been accused of any wrongdoing in the federal investigation.
Now, the Feds are going after the widespread corruption in the schools.
The Feds aren’t stopping at the corrupt judges....
I guess Joe Nobody was already taken.
ping
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