Marathon Pundit: ILL-inois crony capitalism: $98 million Chicago charter school grant under investigation

Saturday, March 30, 2013

ILL-inois crony capitalism: $98 million Chicago charter school grant under investigation

UNO's CEO, Juan Rangel, was a co-chair of Rahm Emanuel's mayoral campaign. This is how Chicago doesn't work.

From the Chicago Sun-Times:

Gov. Pat Quinn’s executive inspector general has opened an investigation into the politically influential United Neighborhood Organization’s use of a $98 million state grant for new charter schools, after a report in the Chicago Sun-Times that UNO gave millions of dollars in contracts for the schools to companies with ties to the organization’s top officials.

Executive Inspector General Ricardo Meza's office asked the state Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity in a letter Feb. 14 to turn over all records regarding the grant, state officials disclosed Friday.

Meza's office has opened "an official investigation" into the UNO grant, according to a copy of the one-page letter that the Quinn administration released Friday.

The inspector general asked to get copies of UNO’s state grant contracts and "any and all corresponding documentation," including anything involving subcontractors, by Feb. 28.