-Caveat Lector-
townhall.com
Michelle Malkin
May 31, 2001
The Department of Embezzlement
President Bush's "No Child Left Behind" school reform proposal passed in
the
House last week. Considering what a colossal black hole the U.S.
Department of Education has become, the $24 billion plan would be more
appropriately dubbed: No Dime Left Behind.
If Beltway pols were truly interested in educational accountability, they
wouldn't be funneling billions of dollars through a government bureaucracy
that can't keep track of its funds. The Education Department failed its
last
three financial audits and is on track to fail again. On the same day the
House approved Bush's school spending package, U.S. Attorney Kenneth
Wainstein issued indictments against 11 people involved in a theft ring of
outside contractors working with Education Department employees. Three
former
Education Department workers have already pled guilty.
I read the federal grand jury's 64-page indictment papers over the weekend.
I
wish every member of Congress would do the same.
This million-dollar criminal enterprise is just the tip of the iceberg of
fraudulent federal spending "for the children."
The ring centered around Elizabeth C. Mellen, an award-winning,
high-ranking
telecommunications specialist in the Education Department's Office of the
Chief Information Officer. Her indicted co-conspirators include her
children
and husband, an employee at the Environmental Protection Agency; her sister
and two nieces (both of whom worked in the Education Department's financial
assistance office); her nephew (who worked as a technical specialist in the
Education Department's financial assistance office); and a Bell Atlantic
employee.
Mellen and her family apparently turned the Education Department into their
own Home Shopping Network. The indictment says Mellen directed the Bell
Atlantic worker, Maurice Hayes, to order equipment through his company's
outside contract (paid for by the Education Department and subsidized by
taxpayers). She then had various contract employees deliver her $300,000
worth of electronic goods. In exchange, the contract employees collected
more
than $600,000 in false overtime pay.
Mellen's sister reportedly visited her workstation several times to shop
from
electronics catalogs; others put in their orders by phone or e-mail.
According to the indictment, Mellen plundered public funds to pay for: 10
Gateway computers and accessories, 15 printers, 4 Yamaha CD drives, 9
laptops
for family birthday and graduation gifts, a 61" Sony television, and 7 cell
phones (on which a total of nearly 12,000 calls were made).
Also: 169 cordless phones (46 with caller ID, 5 with headsets), 6 Olympus
digital cameras and 4 Olympus printers, 8 Sony digital cameras and
accessories, 4 Sony digital camcorders and accessories, 4 Sony Handycams
and
accessories, 4 Sony video Walkmans, 7 PalmPilot personal organizers, 50
Motorola Talkabouts, and 2 Philips audio CD recorders.
In addition, Mellen arranged for a toll-free telephone number to be routed
through the Education Department so that family members and friends could
call
Mellen's sister's home in Mechanicsville, Md., without any toll charges.
She
also ordered the Education Department's Bell Atlantic contract employees,
at
taxpayer expense, to install an additional phone line in her apartment and
an
extra phone jack in her sister's home.
Finally, Mellen used outside contractors as family chauffeurs and handymen.
She ordered them to drive to Baltimore to purchase crab cakes for her,
shuttle
her daughter and granddaughter to a medical facility, powerwash her son's
deck
and perform other yard cleanup.
The Education Department can't claim such theft is rare. It doesn't know.
Government auditors have identified accounting discrepancies totaling up to
$6
billion. Federal education aid has been embezzled to pay for luxury cars,
real estate, diapers and rent. If this agency were a private company, it
would have been shut down by government regulators long ago. Instead, it
grows fatter and more unaccountable every year.
Republicans, who once led the crusade to eliminate the department, are now
tripping over each other to feed the beast.
"The federal role in education is not to serve the system. It is to serve
the
children," the Education Department's motto preaches. I imagine Mrs.
Mellen
told herself the same as she phoned in another electronics order for her
children and licked the crab cake crumbs off her light and greasy fingers.
=======================================================
Kadosh, Kadosh, Kadosh, YHVH, TZEVAOT
FROM THE DESK OF:
*Michael Spitzer* <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
The Best Way To Destroy Enemies Is To Change Them To Friends
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