Bibb County schools say former Superintendent Romain Dallemand conspired with assistants and vendors to defraud them of more than $7 million.
They say that includes paying $3.7 million for 15,000 computers that were unusable and not compatible with their software.
Their lawsuit also says Dallemand paid $3.2 million for various software systems. The district received a single server, which was blank, they claim.
The school lawsuit says Dallemand and others violated school procedures and bidding laws and deceived other school officials about what he was doing.
And they claim he promoted an atmosphere of "fear and intimidation," where employees feared that they would lose their jobs if they didn't follow his orders.
The school board bought out Dallemand in 2013 afer a stormy two years as superintendent. The lawsuit also says Dallemand should pay back his severance agreement because he violated his contract and misled the board.
"A lot of the issues around the money is technology which effects our students," says Miller.
The school lawsuit says Dallemand and other defendants violated school procedures and bidding laws and deceived other school officials about what he was doing. Miller, says over the past few years they have developed a system to prevent fraudulent incidents from happening.
" We've limited the amount of money that someone can spend without coming before the board. We've done that and we've set up several separate departments and oversight to make sure we took care of those problems. So I don't think that's going to be an issue from this point on," says Miller.
School Board President Lester Miller said that money should come back to the district.
“The school boad is seeking some restitution amount around $7.8 million,” Miller said. “Also there is an allegation of RICO violation which would mean that there would be treble damages which is up to three times that amount.”
Miller says it’s time for the public to know really what happened during the Dallemand years.
“We have an ethical obligation to protect the taxpayers in Bibb County. One of the things that this current board and Dr. Curtis Jones really stressed over the past couple years is transparency. What better way to have transparency then to watch this suit unveil in an open court?”
But he says this type of incident is not unique to Macon.
"If someone is going to be fraudlaent and do fraudulent things it's going to. We have a lot of good people that work in our system. We have a lot of good staff members. And we've got a good board. So we're comfortable with what we got going on now. This is just something that had to happen at this time," says Miller
We tried to reach Dallemand at his business in Naples Florida. According to Miller, he now prepares resumes, and proof reads essays. He did not return our phone calls.
Isaac Culver said he could not comment on pending litigation but wishes the board asked for his side of the story before filing a lawsuit.
After filing Bibb Schools released the following statement:
Earlier today, the Bibb County Board of Education filed a complaint in the United States District Court for the Middle District of Georgia against various entities clearly outlining specific concerns regarding the use of taxpayer funding in 2012. The Board’s decision to file a complaint was taken after much consideration and deliberation.
While it was a difficult decision, the Board has done what it believes is in the best interest of our school district. Together, we are focused on demonstrating to this community that our school district is a reliable organization that can be trusted to make the best decisions for all stakeholders – from our biggest stakeholder of students to our taxpayers.
We have learned from this experience, and since then have put into place policies, regulations, and procedures to ensure as best we can this situation never happens again. Along with new policies and regulations, we now have a Procurement Office to monitor our contracts and the processes involving vendors, an Executive Director of Capital Programs to oversee ESPLOST funding from taxpayers, and an Assistant Superintendent of Technology to advise us as we make decisions about implementing the latest interactive technology in our classrooms.
We have no further comments regarding the complaint at this time because of the ongoing nature of this litigation.
Details of the lawsuit::
The Bibb County Board of Education is suing former superintendent Romain Dallemand, Thomas Tourand, Progressive Technologies, Isaac Culver, Comptech Computer Technologies, Allen Stephen, Pinnacle/CSG Inc. and Cory McFarlane.
The board is seeking millions in damages caused during Dallemand’s tenure. They are seeking a minimum of $7.8 million from the named defendants and with treble damages could be awarded up to $22 million. The suit accuses the Dallemand, Tourand, Culver, and Stephen of fraud, breach of contract and racketeering. The nearly 100-page lawsuit includes 11 counts of misconduct by the defendants, and demands a jury trial.
After Dallemand was named superintendent in February of 2011, the district began to upgrade technology. Dallemand recommending hiring Thomas Tourand to be the Executive Director of Technology, even though according to the suit review panel didn’t recommend him.
The suit alleges that Dallemand “manipulated the hiring process to ensure newly hired employees like defendant Tourand and Ms. Canty-Aaron, felt fully obligated to fully support defendant Dallemand and enable him to maneuver around board policy to allow defendant Dallemand and his co-conspirators to defraud BCSD of taxpayer funds.”
In September of 2012 the board of education authorized Dallemand to negotiate a contract with Progressive technologies for technical management services for the district, and approved $500,000 in payments. The suit says that a month later that money was gone without significant improvement to technology in the district.
In Decemeber of 2012 Dallemand removed district CFO Ron Collier after he questioned Dallemand’s use of public funds. He was replaced by Sharon Roberts. According to the suit Tournad authoried an additional $500,000 for Progressive without board approval.
Progressive was supposed to oversee the upgrade of the districts accounting and financial software, and they were not supposed to be a vendor. The suit claims no bids were solicited for the software, required by board policy.
According to the suit Dallemand, Tourand, Progressive, and Culver just chose to buy the software from Pinnacle. The suit alleges Progressive and Culver had close ties to the company. The chose the company without even consulting the CFO of the needs of the district.
In November of 2012 the district entered into a license agreement with Pinnacle for the software without board approval at a cost of $3,247,200 for 24,600 Proscenium Enterprise Suites. The suit claims the invoice was fraudulent since it was based on the number of students enrolled rather than the number employees that would be using it. “Thus, Defendentas Dallemand, Tourand, Progressive, Culver, Pinnacle, and MaFarlane fraudulently caused BCSD to overpay for unneeded Pinnacle items.”
On December 18 the suit claims that Dallemand, Tourand, Progressive, and Culver demanded that Roberts immediately wire $3,247,200 to Pinnacle for payment.
“Roberts was surprised by the request to wire the funds as BCSD never wired funds for purchases but instead mailed checks. Further, Board Policy DJEJ required that all bills be paid by check.”
Roberts expressed her concerns about the purchase of the software without consultation.
Dallemand replied “that a decision had been made and demanded that she immediately wire funds to Defendant Pinnacle.”
The suit states Roberts did wire the money against her wishes for fear of losing her job.
The suit claims that Pinnacle never provided any of the items they paid for with the wired funds. The only thing delivered was a blank server.
Progressive was supposed to implement computing capabilities for students across the district. Progressive chose to order NComputing devices. Dallemand, Tourand, Culver and Progressive chose to purchase 15,000 devices from CompTech. No bids were requested and the BOE never approved the purchase as required by board policy. Again the defendants demanded Roberts pay the $3,768,000 price tag by wire transfer immediately, and she did.
“Shortly after receiving the $3,768,000.00, Defendant CompTech wired from an account in Ohio all but $50,000.00 of the $3,768,000.00 it received from BCSD to Defendant Progressive in Georgia. BCSD was unaware of this arrangement.”
Under the initial agreement Dallemand and Progressive, they were not supposed to be a vendor of any hardware or software with the technology upgrades.
“The 15,000 NComputing devices were delivered to BCSD, but they are unusable and not compatible with existing BCSD infrastructure. The 15,000 NComputing devices are not suited for the purposes intended and neither Defendant Progressive nor BCSD were ever able to have the devices operate as Page 30 of 98 represented. Only 300 of the devices were ever installed and they do not operate properly. The remaining devices are unusable and are currently being stored in BCSD’s warehouse.”
During that same period of time on December 5, 2012 Dallemand’s employment contract was extended until December 31, 2015. Then on January 17, 2013 Dallemand told the Bibb BOE he could no longer work with them and asked to be bought out, they agreed to a deal February 25, 2013.