Sunday: Emails reveal details of TPS investigation
BY ANDREA EGER, World Staff Writer
Saturday, February 02, 2013
2/02/13 at 6:43 PM
Emails obtained through an Open Records request reveal new details about the Tulsa Public Schools athletic department scandal, which finally resulted in charges against former Athletic Director Stephanie Spring after a year-long investigation by local and federal law enforcement.
The written correspondence between Spring and athletics employees and booster club leaders indicates that youth sports groups and others paid for the use of facilities at East Central and Memorial high schools for regular sporting events and special events. But the school district’s log of revenue received from facility rentals or leases during the same time period includes almost no records of payments for athletic facility usage.
Numerous e-mail exchanges during her last full academic year of employment at TPS show:
• Spring solicited funds from individuals who contacted her to request the use of athletic facilities.
• She directed the amounts of fees collected by others.
• She dictated the division of the fees between an account called “TPS Athletics,” local schools’ accounts, as well as off-the-books payments to school groundskeepers.
On Thursday, Spring was charged in Tulsa federal court with stealing money from the school district.
The charge alleges that in 2011, Spring deposited into her personal account an unspecified amount of money in excess of $5,000 for the rental of school facilities. The money should have been deposited into the school district’s general fund.
Read more in Sunday's World.
Associated Images:
Stephanie Spring. Tulsa World file
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