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The Cleveland school district spent $477,000 on a study to clear up just what happened with $8.5 million in federal technology rebates it botched, but then gave the public incorrect information on its findings.

(Patrick O'Donnell,The Plain Dealer)

CLEVELAND, Ohio - The Cleveland school district incorrectly reported its $8.5 million E-Rate rebate failures as costing taxpayers only $5.3 million last week, even while announcing the findings of a pricey report that told the district otherwise.

A study from last spring and a second one released Jan. 26 each show that the district mishandled about $8.5 million in federal technology rebates since 2006.

The latest study - one that cost the district $477,000 - was supposed to clear up exactly what happened with the squandered rebates. But the district's response to it has been anything but clear.

In announcing the findings Jan. 26, the district said the report showed $5.3 million in failed rebates both in a

and a

from CEO Eric Gordon. It also shared that number with the school board .

Despite The Plain Dealer immediately questioning that number and Gordon promising to verify it, the district then spent more than a week defending it.

Over that week, district spokesperson Roseann Canfora declined to explain why that $5.3 million was so different from the $8.57 million in rebate mistakes reported last spring by the Bond Accountability Commission, the watchdog panel for district construction projects.

Canfora repeatedly insisted that reporting the higher total would be in error, before agreeing Wednesday night (Feb. 3) that the total is indeed more than $8 million.

And she insisted that the lawyers from the firm of Squire, Patton, Boggs that did the new study came up with that total.

But they didn't.

The $5.3 million covers just one part of the problems, as outlined in the lawyers' report.

As the report shows, the district mishandled rebates for four different rounds - known as "segments" - of school construction between 2006 and 2011.

In each case, the district paid to install communications and internet equipment in schools but failed to collect federal rebates for it, despite having pre-approval from E-Rate.

In some cases, the district simply failed to apply for the rebates. In others, rebate applications were denied, possibly because the wrong equipment was installed or paperwork was not filed properly.

The district also routinely missed deadlines to file rebate applications.

Though the $5.3 million is for the largest segment, the report shows an additional $2.3 million, $230,000 and $644,000 in pre-approved rebates that went uncollected in other segments.

Altogether, the lawyers reported a total of $8.46 million in botched rebates, a little under the $8.575 million reported last spring by the Bond Accountability Commission.

After conceding Wednesday that all four segments should have been counted, Canfora said the district was not trying to deceive anyone. She noted that the $5.3 million the district reported is higher than the actual amount of $5.23 million lawyers found for that segment. (See the note below) The district, she said, rounded the number up.

"The District's accompanying press release was not intended to suggest that the only amount for which it could be reimbursed, yet failed to receive, was $5.3 million but instead was to focus on the immediate actions the District planned to take to correct the most pressing issues identified," Canfora said in a written statement.

The district, which never even asked for the pre-approved rebate on this segment, asked E-Rate in December to waive its deadlines and allow it to apply now. But Squire Patton Boggs said in the report it is unlikely that request will be granted.

See the BAC's full report here.

Click here for

The 59-page report does not list a total amount of money the district should have received in rebates. But supplementary materials for the report, available on the school district's website here, list breakdowns for each of four phases of school construction, called "segments."

For each segment, the firm lists the rebates the district sought advance approval for, what the federal government pre-approved, how much in post-construction rebates the district applied for, and what it received.

See those tallies by segment below. Click the link above to see the lawyers' explanation of what happened in each segment.

NOTE: USAC (Universal Service Administrative Company) is the agency handling E-Rate reimbursements shown as BEAR (Billed Entity Applicant Reimbursement) in the charts.

Segment 3B/4A shows uncollected rebates of about $5.8 million - higher than what we note above. That's because the district had planned to build a new Charles Lake elementary school in that segment and had been pre-approved for rebates on equipment to install there. Because the district chose not to build that school then, the potential rebate amount fell to $5.23 million for that segment. See footnote 137 on page 33 of the report, shown at the bottom of last week's story on the report.