Absent Oversight, Official Profited

Starting in late 2005, Steven Kapani, a schools financial analyst, went to Ginsberg and Cooper Cafritz, concerned about invoices Belton had approved. Ginsberg said she saw no evidence of criminal wrongdoing but agreed with Kapani that Belton should be fired -- she wasn't coming to work, her office was routinely locked and her staff couldn't reach her or charter school records.

Ginsberg, head of an oversight committee, recommended firing Belton in April 2006. Board members Carolyn Graham, Cooper Cafritz, William Lockridge and Jeff Smith voted Ginsberg down. According to Ginsberg, the board members felt they did not have justification to fire Belton and suspected Kapani was a disgruntled employee.

Kapani then turned to D.C. investigators. He told them he distrusted the board, because when he had expressed his concerns to Cooper Cafritz, she suggested he was confused and asked him to give her the paperwork he had collected.

In an interview, Cooper Cafritz said she tried to convince Kapani to present his allegations to the full board, but he refused.

"I tried to get her [office] audited twice and was voted down," she said. "People said, 'Oh, Peggy just doesn't like Brenda.' " Graham said Kapani never made his concerns clear to the board, and Belton's work habits were not a firing offense. But Graham agrees that Belton's theft was "a board failure."

"If Mr. Kapani had come to the members of the board or the subcommittee, he would have been taken very seriously. He never did," she said. "He never shared anything that made sense. It was nothing to substantiate stealing."

Kapani was eventually put on administrative leave for a year before reaching a settlement with the school system and resigning. Former board member Tommy Wells called Kapani a "hero" who should have been retained. He said Belton's tenure was a board fiasco.

"I really thought the board was not equipped to provide oversight for the charter school board function," he said. "The board members are part time. We rely on the check and balance of audits and staff. If she had been supervised, we could have caught this a lot earlier."