Criminal charges are among the legal options being considered against a former technology director at Denver Public Schools who was fired four months ago for allegedly accepting kickbacks from vendors.

DPS officials have been tight-lipped about any potential legal action against Bud Bullard, a former director in the Department of Technology Services, but last week the school district referred the case to the Denver district attorney.

“Usually the process involves taking the referral and doing an initial review to see if it merits a criminal investigation or not,” said Lynn Kimbrough, a spokeswoman for the Denver district attorney’s office.

Kimbrough said she is not sure how long it will take before the DA’s office decides whether it will pursue charges against Bullard, who allegedly accepted gifts from vendors that included tickets to sporting events, free trips and a reduced price on a Ford pickup truck.

Bullard could not be reached for comment.

School district officials said they have also reported findings from their internal and external audits to the federal government and are weighing other legal action.

“We are considering all legal options to recoup damages,” DPS spokesman Michael Vaughn said. He did not elaborate on the damages that the school district could seek to recover from Bullard.

An external audit released by DPS last month said investigators found no evidence that the district misspent funds or was shortchanged by vendors as a result of Bullard’s actions. Auditors said they found that the vendors who gave Bullard gifts would have been selected without his support because they had the highest scores among a panel of evaluators.

Since some of the vendors received contracts tied to federal E-Rate money, Denver Public Schools reported its findings to the Universal Service Administrative Co. The Federal Communications Commission has designated the company as the administrator of federal E-Rate funding, which is provided to school districts so that they can improve access to technology.

“DPS understands that USAC will need to conduct its own review of these allegations, and commits to cooperating fully in such a review,” Ari Fitzgerald, an attorney working for the school district, wrote in a letter dated Feb. 26.

In the letter, Fitzgerald mentioned that the district was investigating allegations against Bullard and another employee. The other employee, whose name was redacted in a copy of the letter provided to The Post, was later cleared by the school district.

Representatives with the company declined to discuss the letter or any potential investigation. So did officials with the FCC, who said they do not offer confirmation or denial of any potential investigations.

According to the external audit, an attorney for one of the witnesses who was interviewed suggested that the FBI started looking into Bullard’s actions a couple of years ago. But the district’s external auditors said they could not determine if the investigation was ongoing and they could not confirm such an investigation through other sources.

“During the conclusion of our interview with Kristin Scott of CenturyLink, formerly known as Qwest Corp., the attorney present on behalf of CenturyLink, Cliff Stricklin, informed us that the FBI had approached Qwest approximately two years ago, making some of the same inquiries into Mr. Bullard’s activities as those being made in the current investigation,” auditors wrote. “He said the FBI had approached Qwest once, and that there had been no further contact.”

FBI spokesman Dave Joly declined to comment.

Zahira Torres: 303-954-1244, ztorres@denverpost.com or twitter.com/zahiratorresdp