The School District of Lee County did not overpay for textbooks despite claims it overpaid by nearly $850,000.
The School District of Lee County denies it overpaid for textbooks despite a whistleblower complaint alleging that it and several other school systems in the state were overcharged by hundreds of thousands of dollars by publisher McGraw Hill.
In a two-sentence statement released Friday, May 20, the district says it has reviewed its purchase orders for English language arts material for elementary students from McGraw Hill and found that “all textbooks were purchased per Florida statute through the Florida School Book Depository at the state contracted price.
“The district paid the correct amount.”
This is a far cry from what was said in a letter sent to the Florida Department of Education and the Office of the Attorney General on May 5 as part of the whistleblower complaint.
The letter, sent by the Tallahassee law firm Komisar-Spicola which represents the anonymous whistleblower, says Lee schools was overcharged by $842,703 for kindergarten through fifth grade English language arts adoption materials last year.
A spokesperson for the firm did not immediately respond to a request form comment on Lee’s statement.
According to the complaint, a search of purchase orders found “a potential overcharge to the state of Florida of nearly $2.4 million” just on English language arts materials for elementary school students. This happened in seven out of Florida’s 67 school...
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