Though the jury found no evidence of criminal activity or willful corruption, the report outlines the timeline for how more than $8 million was misspent through private partnerships the jury concluded were rushed and lacked meaningful oversight.
Politics over experience
Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt is one of the main subjects of the report, which took jurors two months to compile. Jurors said Stitt let politics get in the way of proper fund management.
In 2020, the Trump Administration released the Governor’s Emergency Educational Relief (GEER) Funds to states, intending to get money to educational agencies most significantly impacted by the pandemic or essential for emergency educational services. Oklahoma received $39.9 million of those funds.
Instead of using the Oklahoma State Department of Education to handle the federal grants — an agency with significant staffing resources and experience in federal grant management — Stitt instead turned to two pro-school choice private nonprofits through no-bid contracts: Every Kid Counts Oklahoma, whose then-executive director is the now-State Superintendent Ryan Walters; and the Oklahoma chapter of the American Federation for Children, a group founded by former Trump Secretary of Education, Betsy DeVos…