One of our regular writers, Whitkat had written about this when it came to light a while back. Boiled down, the Cleburne ISD misused federal funds, including NCLB monies to pay for stuff like eating out at Ruth Criss's Steak House. Since then, some of the board members have retired to "spend more time with their families".

Here's the latest from the Cleburne paper.

Cleburne ISD officials will travel to Austin today to discuss the next steps in the wake of the Texas Education Agency’s report on the district’s use of federal education funds.

Dr. Ronny Beard, CISD superintendent and Dr. James Warlick, the former interim superintendent, will meet with TEA officials to try to determine what the agency will require of the district.

The report, which was presented to the school board during Monday’s meeting, is the final audit report, Beard said, but not the end of the matter.

Here, from Cleburnepolitics.com is the rough draft of the final TEA report.

July 14, 2008 –The Texas Education Agency called for Cleburne ISD to repay $362,304.31 in misspent federal grant money based on an investigation conducted over the past two years. TEA examined only a small portion of federal grant monies received and found that CISD misspent 43.8% of federal grant monies audited.

See that last? EXAMINED ONLY A SMALL PORTION OF FEDERAL GRANT MONIES RECEIVED. One wonders how much Cleburne ISD was actually charging up. Seems like they will be getting off easy if that's all they have to repay. And won't the superintendent of CISD get charged with embezzling???