Jeff Prince The FBI may have flagged down a problem with FWISD's bidding practices regarding The Academy and other facilities.

One of the largest bond programs in the history of the Fort Worth school district is under a cloud of suspected corruption. According to numerous sources, the FBI is investigating allegations that normal bidding processes have been illegally circumvented to steer contracts awarded as part of the $398 million bond program to a particular company or companies.

Because of the way in which the contracts were handled, sources said, the FBI is considering the possibility that the contractors may have had inside help. Such contracts are handled by the district's maintenance department. To date, no district employees have been named as targets of the investigation.

FBI officials would not confirm the existence of the probe or say which contractors were under suspicion. However, according to school trustee Juan Rangel, Superintendent Tom Tocco recently notified the school board of the federal investigation, warning them that news stories might name Brooks Contractors Inc., a frequently utilized concrete vendor, as the subject of the inquiry.

The office of Brooks Contractors, on Fort Worth's east side, appeared closed Monday morning. Phone calls to the office had gone unanswered for several days. Raylate and Shwanda Joyce Brooks, listed in state records as president and vice president of the company, respectively, could not be reached for comment.

"The district's records pertaining to Brooks Contractors, including purchase orders and bid documents, have been boxed up and moved to the legal department," head of purchasing Charles Richardson said when Fort Worth Weekly asked to see the company's file. "Everything that pertains to that company is gone from our department." He declined to comment on whether the documents were removed at the request of the FBI.

Bertha Whatley, head of the schools' legal department, also would not comment when asked if the FBI had subpoenaed the papers. Asked if the FBI were investigating, she said, "I was told we could not talk about the investigation to anyone." When asked who told her not to talk, she replied, "The FBI." Whatley re-fused to comment when asked if the district were conducting its own internal investigation, saying only that her instructions from Tocco were "to cooperate fully with the FBI." Tocco did not return phone calls from Fort Worth Weekly.

Betty Brink Brooks' closed office on Miller Avenue

The investigation involves allegations that large contracts were broken up into numerous packages small enough to avoid requirements for competitive bidding or school-board approval, according to a source familiar with the investigation. State law mandates that public school-district contracts worth $25,000 or more be put out for bids. According to Whatley, district policy is more stringent, lowering that threshold to $10,000. Below those figures, the administration can let small jobs without bidding or board approval. In some instances, the source said, projects worth as much as $500,000 were broken up into contracts of less than $25,000, which were then allegedly awarded to Brooks.

It is not clear who in the school district signed off on the construction contracts. The bond program, approved by voters in February 1999, is under the oversight of Associate Superintendent Eldon Ray, head of the maintenance department since 1995. Ray plans to retire at the end of this year after 40 years with the district. The board recently voted to retain his services as a consultant until the construction program is complete in 2004.

Ray has not returned repeated calls from Fort Worth Weekly, nor has he responded to questions sent to him by fax regarding the investigation.

Partial records released to Fort Worth Weekly before the Brooks documents were removed from Richardson's department show that the company submitted 41 purchase orders for concrete and excavation work under the bond program, either for remodeling work at the Academy on Camp Bowie or work on the Accelerated High School on Magnolia Avenue. They were sent to the attention of either Ray, long-time Ray assistant Tommy Ingram -- expected to take over Ray's duties when he retires -- or another department supervisor, Jim Fitzpatrick. The bills totaled $2,021,977 for the Academy work and $104,256 for the Accelerated High School; individually, all but three of the purchase orders were for amounts less than $25,000. Neither Ingram nor Fitzpatrick returned a reporter's phone calls.

Rangel said trustees have not been given any other information about the investigation, nor has the FBI contacted him personally. "That's all I know," he said.

While declining to confirm existence of the investigation, Dallas FBI spokesperson Lori Bailey said that all public corruption probes by her agency are now on the back burner. "Basically," she said, "all of our operations are on hold as we have everyone dealing with the terrorist threat."