Jan. 23--Former State Board of Education chair Gery Chico violated a conflict-of-interest policy when he weighed in on a question before the board about supplemental education funding without disclosing that his wife owns a company that provides those services, a state ethics office has found.
Chico, a City Hall lobbyist and failed 2011 mayoral candidate, is no longer on the education board. The Governor's Office of Executive Inspector General, which investigated the matter, did not fine Chico and instead recommended that its report be placed in his file.
The vote at issue occurred in 2012, when Chico was an appointee of then-Democratic Gov. Pat Quinn.
The education board was crafting a request for a waiver from requirements of the federal No Child Left Behind Act and was considering asking to be freed of a rule that requires some school districts to set aside money for supplemental education services.
Sunny Chico is president of a consulting firm that provides supplemental education services. The firm has received about $1.26 million from Chicago Public Schools for providing those services, according to the ethics report.
The ethics investigators said in their report that "although there is no evidence that Mr. Chico threatened to withhold his vote on the waiver application if it contained a request to waive the supplemental educational services requirement, it appears that Mr. Chico did influence the ISBE staff to retain a set-aside requirement."
Chico told the ethics office that he did not disclose the information about his wife because he did not believe he had a conflict of interest.
kgeiger@tribpub.com
