Editor's note:
At an Akron Board of Education meeting on Sept. 22, members approved an amendment to a resolution to refer Steve Keenan’s investigation report to the Akron Police Department, the city of Akron’s law department, the state auditor’s office, the Ohio Ethics Commission and the IRS.
As director of facilities services, Steve Keenan oversaw the trade in of 11 mowers to Baker Vehicle Systems, a longtime district vendor, according to an Akron Public Schools investigation. After accepting the company’s valuation without negotiation, the report states he approved the deals internally.
Keenan purchased seven of the mowers from the company, according to the 17-page report, paying the trade-in value plus 10% and the 6.75% county sales tax — an employee and family discount. He then listed five of them for sale on his personal Facebook Marketplace page.
His profit? At least $10,700.
Keenan, who resigned Wednesday, is forcing Akron schools to determine whether his transactions and others violate state law and board policy around the disposal of high-priced equipment purchased with taxpayer dollars. It’s also leading education leaders such as board member Barbara Sykes to wonder who is tracking the school district’s thousands of assets, from laptops and televisions to buses and mowers. That’s why she recently requested that Akron schools undergo its first performance audit since the 1990s.
Sykes hopes working with the state auditor helps the school district eliminate inefficiencies and wrongdoing.
“This is dealing with our inventory process, our purchasing process, and how we go about doing things,” Sykes said during the school board’s special meeting on Monday. “And perhaps we want to see if the auditor can get in as soon as possible to take a look at what we’re doing, how we’re doing it, and if it’s to the advantage of the district.”
The investigative report concludes Keenan had the final say on managing the school district’s maintenance equipment. These details and others were made public Tuesday in the investigative report from Stephanie Olivera Mittica, an attorney with Roetzel & Andress. Keenan responded with a rebuttal letter, challenging accusations against him and citing systemic failures.
His resignation is on the agenda for the school board’s Sept. 22 meeting.
The report does not examine or weigh in on whether Keenan violated state laws. Still, the Board of Education and district officials are considering criminal referrals. Sykes said she’d like to see the investigation referred to local police, prosecutors, state auditors and the IRS.
Keenan has not responded to multiple requests for comment from Signal Akron.
New details emerge about Keenan’s involvement in mower scheme
In March, the report states Dave Varkett, the general manager of Baker Vehicle Systems, arrived at the school district’s warehouse in Akron’s Cascade Valley neighborhood to talk through trade-in values of 11 mowers.
Varkett left with a cashier’s check.
It was from a district maintenance worker, who approached Varkett about two mowers. The report states the employee handed Varkett a check during work hours on APS property — before trade-in values were finalized.
The maintenance worker, like Keenan, received an employee discount, according to the report, ultimately paying the trade-in value plus 10% and sales tax. Baker Vehicle Systems then delivered the two mowers to the maintenance worker’s home.
He later told investigators he still has possession of them.
A carpenter with the school district also purchased two mowers. After replacing a motor and making other repairs, the carpenter sold the mowers he purchased to a friend for $18,000. He made nearly $10,000 in profit.
Signal Akron is not naming the two additional APS employees because they have not faced discipline and are lower-level workers.
The reports states although Keenan maintained he did not know whether he purchased equipment that was previously owned by the school district and traded in to Baker Vehicle Systems, emails between Keenan and one of the APS employees that purchased mowers “confirm the opposite.”
How did the Akron’s leadership learn about the mower trade-ins and resales?
During the months following the trade-ins, Akron schools’ employees became concerned about the possibility of wrongdoing, eventually going to then-Treasurer Steve Thompson, who brought in other administrators.
In mid-May, before outside investigators were brought in, district officials began asking their own questions. And doing their own research. They discovered Facebook Marketplace listings on an account that appeared to belong to Keenan. It showed the mowers, some of which were advertised as “practically new.”
By the end of the month, the account was gone.
When pressed by an investigator during interviews, Keenan said he deleted his account in April because the social networking site was too political and divisive.
This marked what investigators concluded was the first in a series of Keenan’s less-than-honest answers. When confronted with screenshots of his Facebook Marketplace listings for mowers previously owned by Akron Public Schools, Keenan became “very evasive” and “shifty,” the investigator wrote.
Keenan questioned if the family in the account’s profile picture was his or not; he wasn’t sure. He floated the idea that his account had been hacked, or that someone used his photos to create a fake account. He claimed not to recognize the garage or yard in the background of the mowers he listed on Facebook — despite the images matching a Google Maps view of his home.
What does Keenan have to say about the allegations?
On Sept. 11, Keenan penned a response to the investigation, saying it was “retaliation” after he wrote a letter about former Superintendent Michael Robinson’s misconduct. The four-page letter acknowledges that he received an employee discount from Baker Vehicle Systems. It also places responsibility for the trade-ins to Debra Foulk, the school district’s executive director of Business Affairs.
But emails included in the investigation show that Keenan, not Foulk, was in direct communication with Varkett of Baker Vehicle Systems. Not only was he aware of the trade-ins, but he approved their values.
“The scrutiny I now face over routine vendor interactions and personal purchases—interactions that mirror those of other employees—is not about ethics,” Keenan wrote in his letter to the school board, dated Sept. 11. “It is about retaliation for challenging misconduct, saving the district millions through contract reform, and refusing to be complicit in unethical practices.”