News broke of the first release from the grand jury investigating the Scranton School District.  I’ve read the whole release, and you should, too.

Here’s what you need to know:

• There will be more from the grand jury.
  • There is an “Unnamed Co-Conspirator” who pops up in the release.  Even without Times confirmation (which I’m glad they got), it’s clear that this is Gregg Sunday.  He’s been there a long, long time.  And I suspect he’s telling the investigators everything he knows in exchange for leniency.  Sansky was hired back in 2005 and this goes straight back to then.  The late Paul O’Malley, then a district employee and later a school director, asked Sansky, after the Board hired him, how much he wanted to make.  Employees don’t do that, and secure health care upon request.  That means there were a group of people involved in these decisions.  Who they are will come out.
    Further, we know that Sansky is guilty of tax evasion, and yet no charges regarding this were filed.  I’m betting that he’ll be telling investigators everything he knows in exchange for some leniency.
• A bunch of people are probably going to lose their jobs.
  • There are a lot of initials of people who work in maintenance who are probably losing their jobs soon.  Here they are:  GH, JS, JSE, JB, SC, GG, DW, TG, and RS.  Each one of these people had work done for free by Sansky.  Two of them had the work done charged to the district.  That would constitute theft, which would mean, aside from losing a job, they are looking at pension forfeiture.  Also worthy of note: these are just people that investigators have records for.  Sansky may not have everything written down, and god knows the district has the most abysmal accounting practices of any district in the state.  Who else had work done?  Who else knew what they were getting?  What did these people do in order to get free work?  You know, there’s a reason why employees should never use vendors for work.  It looks corrupt.  Because, in this case, it is.  I’m sure each of the people above had their turns with the investigators.  And I’m sure, if the Board does its due diligence, they’ll learn from investigators who was helping to defraud the district.  Anybody guilty of anything should be fired immediately and, perhaps more importantly, restitution should be pursued.
• Lesh is in trouble.
  • See above.  Bob Lesh should never have gone to a vendor for work.  He says he paid, from the report, it looks like a favor happened.  Why would Sansky not charge him, just as he didn’t charge the others?  People don’t like to work for free, normally.  There will be calls for him to re-resign, and if investigators say there was quid-pro-quo, then he has to go.

While I’m saddened by the fact that Scranton appears to be a corruption-laden hellhole, at least the layers are being peeled back.  At least we’ll know more as the grand jury indicts more people.  But if these people don’t pay the district back, we won’t get full satisfaction.  The million dollars that Sansky bilked from the district (and, frankly, I’m sure Sunday did it for more than just some brake pad changes here and there) has to be paid back, in full and with interest.  The district is broke and it’s this kind of corruption that clearly contributed to the current crisis.

Taxpayers are the ones paying for this.  Teachers and students are paying.

All these criminals should pay with jail time, and their pocketbooks.  Otherwise, justice will only be half-served.