Scottsdale School Construction Project Central In AG Investigation

Finally, I was told there are no such records, there is no feasibility study.”Drake found that concerning — and he wasn’t alone. Mike Peabody, a Scottsdale resident, SUSD parent and president of the Scottsdale Parent Council, said conversations he had with other members of the community led them to believe there might be some irregularities in the bond.“I put in my first request,” Peabody said, “to see this bond funding from the day it started to the end of that fiscal year.”Peabody, Drake and a handful of other concerned Scottsdale residents came together earlier this year, after they realized they were concerned about the same issues. They began trading notes and used a Facebook group to share what they had found with the broader community.Not only did they identify concerns with the architect hired for the project, but they found documents showing that employees recently hired by the district, and who had ties to the new Scottsdale Unified School District superintendent Denise Birdwell through her former position at Higley Unified School District, had conflicts of interest.From there, things snowballed. Some of these concerned community members also began sharing what they found with the Arizona Attorney General’s office, which confirmed their office is investigating possible civil and criminal violations.The story begins in early 2016, before the bond was even officially proposed by the school board.[embedded content]What is a bond? KJZZ's Carrie Jung explains.To help determine the dollar amount of a bond, school districts need to identify the scope of the project they want to fund. To do that most enlist an architect, who will create a master plan. In this case, SUSD hired Hunt & Caraway. And that’s where some irregularities began to catch the attention of the community.Hunt & Caraway was hired using a private cooperative purchasing network called 1 Government Procurement Alliance (1GPA). The cooperative purchasing method is intended to streamline procurement. But records obtained by KJZZ and AZCIR suggest Hunt & Caraway began working on the project before the procurement process even started.Records show that in January 2016, 1GPA began advertising the request for qualifications, which tells interested vendors there’s possible work. Architecture firms were then given a qualifications submission deadline of Feb. 11, 2016.But ...