Already under investigation for financial dealings at Lake Forest public schools, the head of west suburban Morton High School district now is facing questions about whether he falsified moving expenses there.
Morton Supt. Allen J. Klingenberg received a $4,535 reimbursement for expenses billed to apparently non-existent moving companies, according to records and two board members of the district that operates a school in Cicero and in Berwyn.
On records submitted to the Morton district, Klingenberg listed two Lake County addresses for the movers. One is the home of his secretary when he was superintendent of the Lake Forest district, and the other is the home of a janitor at a Lake Forest elementary school. State records list no moving companies by the names given by Klingenberg.
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The billings, which were for storage of some of his belongings and the packing and moving of others from Lake Forest to Berwyn, prompted some board members, teachers and students to renew their calls for Klingenberg’s resignation Wednesday.
“There appears to be a willful attempt on the part of the superintendent to defraud the district of our taxpayers’ hard-earned money,” said board members George Schvach and Carole Walsh, who issued a joint statement Wednesday.
“If allegations prove to be true, we intend to ask for a state investigation over possible misuse of school tax dollars by the administration,” they said. “We will take whatever action necessary to resolve this problem in the best interest of the school districts and the students.”
Repeated attempts to contact Klingenberg Wednesday, both in person and by telephone, were unsuccessful.
In Lake Forest, where Kligenberg was superintendent of the award-winning elementary school district for nearly two decades, the Lake County State’s Attorney’s Office confirmed this week that the former school chief is a target of its investigation into the district’s spending of a state science grant.
The state’s attorney’s office is reviewing allegations disclosed in the Tribune that payment vouchers used under a state science grant allegedly were forged. A state audit recently reported that more than $118,000 of the $404,000 grant had been misspent.
“I think it’s safe to say that, yes, we are going to be looking at him (Klingenberg),” said George Strickland, assistant Lake County state’s attorney. “Anybody who would have had a motive to forge those documents is going to get looked at in this.”
Klingenberg was superintendent in Lake Forest when the schools received the two-year grant, beginning during the 1989-1990 school year.
Some of the money, which was designated to develop a science curriculum in Lake Forest, was used instead to pay for country club dinners and out-of-state travel, including a trip to Rome.
At the Morton district, Klingenberg’s problems are not confined to questions about his moving expenses.
During a combative school board meeting on Monday, about 1,500 Morton students submitted a petition calling on the entire school board to resign because of questions about everything from out-of-state trips to the use of school credit cards to curriculum changes.
“Dr. Klingenberg is leading this district to ruin,” Richard Skoda, a popular Morton West social science teacher, said at the Monday night meeting. “Dr. Klingenberg is running this school district through decree and intimidation. The students have no faith in him. The teachers have no confidence in him.”
The chaos has reached such a fevered pitch that State Sen. Judy Baar Topinka (R-North Riverside) has asked Illinois Schools Supt. Robert Leininger to investigate the situation at Morton “to the extent that you can” and to audit the district’s use of state funds.
“Charges of misappropriation of funds, luxury trips for the superintendent and board members, questionable use of . . . credit cards, nepotism, expenditures for high-profile public relations companies and alleged laundering of funds to provide jobs and/or contracts for favorite personnel are flying around in all directions,” Topinka wrote in a Tuesday letter to Leininger.
Leininger had not received the letter by Wednesday and was not sure how he would respond, a spokeswoman for the state superintendent said.
Klingenberg left Lake Forest Elementary District 67 in February 1992 in the wake of a nationally publicized test-cheating scandal. Several months later, Morton High School District 201 hired him as superintendent and agreed to pay his moving expenses.
On vouchers submitted for reimbursement, Klingenberg alternatively said his move was handled by “Gonzales & Associates” and “A. Gonzales Moving Services.”
The address Klingenberg gave for Gonzales & Associates is the address of the home of Phyllis Gilboy, who was Klingenberg’s secretary when he was superintendent of Lake Forest District 67.
Attempts to reach Gilboy, both at her house and at work, were unsuccessful Wednesday. Her two-story brick home is in a residential area and no businesses are nearby.
The address Klingenberg listed for A. Gonzales Moving Services is the home of Leo Gonzales, a janitor at Sheridan Elementary School in Lake Forest.
Gonzales declined to comment. But in a brief telephone interview, Gonzales’ wife, Dorothy, said she had never heard of a Gonzales moving company.
“I don’t know what Gonzales Moving is,” she said.
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The corporate records division of the Illinois Secretary of State had no documents of incorporation for a moving company under the name of Gonzales. The phone company also had no record of such a moving company in the six-county Chicago area.
Some of the vouchers Klingenberg submitted as proof of his expenses were hand-written on J. Sterling Morton High Schools stationery. Along the side of several sheets, a hand-written statement says, “Paid Personal Check by AJK,” Klingenberg’s initials.
Other vouchers were on sheets that simply had the name and address of the moving companies typewritten at the top, but no logos, seals or other identifying marks.