A new investigation for the Manatee County School District.

The District’s Staff Attorney, Mitchell Teitelbaum, said he’s forwarding claims of bid tampering to the Florida Attorney General’s Office. He made the announcement Wednesday while at an audit committee meeting meant to discuss millions of unaccounted funds.

It has been determined that 2009 bond money was spent on unapproved projects and nor properly documented. Recently, the FBI checked out the matter. But, determined no fraudulent or embezzlement of money took place.

While reviewing documents, Teitelbaum found $23 million was spent on construction contracts for work at Myakka and Braden River Elementary Schools. He said it’s how those jobs were awarded that has him concerned.

“It’s not about misappropriation, it’s about how certain contractors were changed from their bid process,” said Teitelbaum.

He said he believes bid tampering and official misconduct took place. He said despite ranking two companies as the most qualified to do the work, two others, further down on the list, were selected for the jobs.

He’s now questioning the bidding process and selection committee.

“To make sure we have accountability and transparency and fiscal responsibility,” said Teitelbaum. “I can’t emphasize enough in 2017, with the sales tax.  That is significant. And we need public trust.”

More audit updates about the misspending are expected in the future.

Below is a statement from the superintendent at the time in 2009, Dr. Roger Dearing.

“These allegations are totally without merit. We followed all statutory regulations and processes in all our bids, and there was absolutely no wrongdoing. 

During my tenure as superintendent, the school board was extremely conscientious in ensuring that local sales tax dollars for school construction benefit local constituents — the children in our schools and our local firms who supported our community. All RFPs were to have included local preference criteria. This was especially important because at the time our local economy was negatively affected by the recession and local preference was critical to our local business community. That criteria was not in the original RFPs for the 2008 Braden River and Myakka City elementary school projects. When the board realized that, we rejected the results and reissued the RFP with the correct criteria. This is the correct, legal process, and I’m confident anyone who looks into this will come to that conclusion.”