It is hard to keep track of how many government employees in Chicago and Cook County have been accused of doing a number on the $800 billion federal Paycheck Protection Program.
A bit of outrage fatigue has also set in. That doesn’t mean that honest taxpayers aren’t disgusted over the alleged fraud carried out by civil servants. They just aren’t surprised.
The crooked assembly line keeps moving across the country and in our backyard, spitting out public officials, like Chicago Public Schools’ former head of school operations Crystal Cooper and 13 other CPS staffers who surely knew better than to cheat a program meant to help small businesses during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Cooper, who has stepped down, allegedly inflated her income so she could receive a Paycheck Protection Program loan of $15,625 for a side business she never reported to CPS, according to Sun-Times investigative reporter Lauren FitzPatrick. Eleven others ensnared by the school system’s inspector general have since resigned or were fired. The remaining two are facing termination proceedings.
Neither Cooper nor her CPS colleagues have been charged with a crime. Those accused of similar hustles while working for the city or county haven’t been indicted either. Yet. The sheer scope of the PPP and related pandemic relief scams have overwhelmed investigators nationwide, prompting elected leaders in Springfield and Washington to enact legislation extending the period of time these cases can be prosecuted.
No matter how tired people are of hearing about the many different ways their fellow Americans fleeced billions from the PPP and other programs, there’s good reason to keep up the drumbeat: Anyone responsible for scamming money should be held accountable.
Cooper was among the 780 CPS employees confirmed to have gotten PPP loans. Many received funding legitimately. But there are certainly likely to be others who took advantage of how easy it was to fleece the PPP.
Inspector General Will Fletcher told FitzPatrick and the Sun-Times Editorial Board he doesn’t know how many more investigations his department will open, adding that it doesn’t have the resources to do 700-plus more cases.
The focus, he says, will continue on supervisors and managers who are in positions of trust and authority, and use their discretion in choosing who does business with the district.
Why stop there? If a teacher lied about owning a business to secure PPP money, shouldn’t he or she deal with the consequences?
Fletcher said if the U.S. Small Business Administration and federal investigators lend a hand, it could help his team expand its reach. We hope that happens.
Whether a top official or a lower-level employee, no city or county worker who committed fraud should get a pass.
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