On
November 2024 and again in December Minneapolis Public Schools (MPS) Finance
Division Director of Finance/Controller Aaron Gilbert sought and gained authorization
from Senior Finance Officer Ibrahima Diop to transfer 95% of monthly deposits a
health care account, VEBA (Voluntary Employees Benefits Association.t hat
amounted to $3,000,000 ($3 million). Gilbert similarly received authorization
to make the same 95% in transfers from January 2025 through June 2026. In July 2025, Gilbert made the same transfer
without authorization.
These
actions eventually were interpreted in such a way as to cause concern in the
MPS Superintendent Lisa Sayles-Adams Administration and attract much press
attention, chiefly from the Minnesota Reformer and the Minnesota Star
Tribune.
In May
2025, an official in the Minneapolis Public Schools Human Resources Division,
who would report to Senior Human Resources Officer Alicia Miller (and may have
been Miller) noticed the transfers made by Gilbert. The Human Resources employee began to
investigate the transfers through the following month (June 2025), consulting
along the way with the Minneapolis Public Schools actuary, and an attorney,
Darcy Hitesman, who includes in her expertise the sort of financial transfers
that Gilbert was making. By 18 August
2025, officials within the Minneapolis Public Schools with knowledge of the
transfers were expressing deep concern.
On 12 May
2025, the same month in which the Human Resources official noticed the
transfers and started to investigate, Ibrahima Diop received a reprimand from
Sayles-Adams pertinent to Minnesota Data Practices Act; evidence from an email exchange indicates
that Diop had made comments regarding personnel that violated the act. The reprimand also asserted that Diop had
failed to participate in compliance training. Sayles-Adams’s reprimand seemingly was done
without knowledge of the transfers being made by Gilbert, and without any
information from the investigating Human Resources official: External investigations indicate that the
superintendent would not become privy to the transfers until late August2025 or
early September 2025.
In the eventful
May 2025, the Sayles-Adams administration also hired Sepler and Associates (for
a payment of $29,000) to investigate the culture and climate in the MPS Finance
Division; the report would not be issued
until August 2025.
In 25
August 2025 Diop received a second reprimand and “final warning” from
Sayles-Adams, with critical comments expressing “continuing performance
concerns” on the part of Diop and citing an “inability to provide accurate
budgeting and costing information.”
On 5
September 2025, Sayles-Adams directed employees to stop withholding 5% of funds
for deposit to the healthcare accounts;
three days later, on 8 September 2025, the superintendent ordered that
the previous withheld funds be returned to the health care accounts.
In the
same month, the law firm Greene-Espel was hired to investigate the matter of
the transfers. When the report from the
firm was issued several months later, Green-Espel said that investigators could
not determine if misuse of funds had occurred;
MPS officials also could find no evidence of misuse of funds.
Also in September
2025, Superintendent Sayles-Adams learned of IRS tax penalties that the
district had incurred. The penalties
totaled $5.2 million: $2.9 million for errors
in calculation and reporting employee taxes and $2.3 million for late filing of
W-2 and 1095-C forms). In April 2026,
more penalties would be assessed.
In
November 2025, officials at the Minneapolis Public Schools filed a police
report indicating that “wire fraud” had occurred within the district. But at this point, Gilber, Diop, and
Chapinduka (a former Finance official who had rejoined the district only on 1
July 2025) remained in their jobs.
In fact,
in December 2025 Diop led six community meetings in which he gave five-year
projections, including a forecasted $20 million deficit for fiscal year
2027; but by February 2026, by which
time Diop no longer held his position, updated revenue and expenditure data would
bring the deficit figure to $50 million.
On 18
December 2025 Diop accepted a job in the Milwaukee Public School District as an
assistant superintendent and the next day (19 December) announced his resignation.
Then came
an odd series of exchanges between Sayles-Adams and Diop:
On 2
January 2026, Diop received an email from Sayles-Adams conveying that he was
henceforth “discharged from employment” at the Minneapolis Public Schools. Twelve days later (14 January) came another
email conveying to Diop that “I have accepted your resignation” (effective 30
January).
On 2
January 2026, notice went out that Gilbert, Diop, and Chapinduka had been
suspended indefinitely. 30 January 2026
was Diop’s last day as an employee of the Minneapolis Public Schools; 17 February 2026 was the last day for
Chapinduka. Gilbert, whose withholding
of the 5% ($3 million) of funds from the health care accounts had caused much
of the controversy regarding the Finance Division at the Minneapolis Public
Schools, continued on the district payroll until 14 May 2026.
In
January 2026, officials at the Minneapolis Public Schools signed a contract
with the Center for Effective School Operations (CESO) at $68,865 per month to
manage and assess operations within the Finance Division of the Minneapolis
Public Schools. Signatories on this
contract was Senior Executive Officer Ryan Strack (for the Minneapolis Public
Schools) and Vice President/Finance Dee Dee Kahring (for the Center for
Effective School Operations [CESO]).
CESO official Kara Lundin led the ($68,865 per month) investigation and
management of the Finance Division.
By 28
April Lundin had worked with officials in the MPS Department of Special
Education to recode special education expenses according to prevailing
regulations so as to garner $11 million in increased special education funding.
In 4
April the completed audit revealed $112 million (not $140 million as the
Finance Division had previously indicated) to be in the unassigned fund balance; this placed the amount in the fund to be less
than the 8% stipulated by MPS Board of Education of Education rules; the Board approved an additional $3.6 million
for deposit in the unassigned fund balance, so as to meet the 8% standard.
……………………………………………………………………………………..
The
following contracts have been signed by Minneapolis Public Schools officials
(mostly Senior Human Resources Officer Alicia Miller and Senior Executive
Officer Ryan Strack) with senior officers of the Center for Effective School
Operations (CESO) >>>>>
Transportation
Contract, 28 October 2025 through 31 January 2026
>>>>> $!40,406.25
Transportation
Contract, 14 November 2025 through 30 June 2026
>>>>> $82,500.00
Data
Extraction and Costing Model Customization Training and Support,
14 July
2025 through 30 June 2026
>>>>> $45,500.00
Executive
consulting support for MPS Human Services at a rate of $195 per hour for an
amount not to exceed
>>>>> $45,000.00
These
figures total
>>>>> $312,906.25
The Lisa
Sayles-Adams administration has also signed contract with CESO to provide
support for the Finance Division; the
contract extends from 20 January 2026 through 20 January 2027, with payment
given as $68,865 per month. For the
twelve-month period, this would total
>>>>> $826,380.00
Additional
work may also be provided at a rate of $195 per hour.
……………………………………………………………..
……………………………………………………………..
Thus,
Total
expenditure for contracts concluded by June 2026 was
>>>>> $312,906.25
Total
expenditure for support to the Finance Division when the contract concludes in
20 January 2027 will be
>>>>> $826,380.00
These
figures total
>>>>>
$1,139,286.25
The
contract with the law firm Greene-Espel (to investigate the health care account
transfers) totaled $120,000.
The
contract with Sepler Associates to investigate and assess climate and culture
in the Finance Division totaled $29,000.
Thie
brings total expenditures for external contract services related to the
Minneapolis Public Schools Finance Division to
>>>>>
$1,288,286.25 <<<<<
……………………………………………………………..
……………………………………………………………..
Thus, the
Lisa Sayles-Adams Administration has committed to paying $1,288,286.25 for
services related to the Minneapolis Public Schools Finance Division. Then majority of payments have or will go to
the Center for Effective School Operations.
By July
2026, some of those who have followed activity of the Minneapolis Public
Schools for many years were questioning the wisdom and motivation for these
payments and for what they deemed unfair innuendo cast upon Aaron Gilbert,
Ibrahima Diop, and Tariro Chapinduka:
Investment
banker Sara Spafford Freeman told Minneapolis Star Tribune reported
Anthony Lonetree
that she
believes the district has “thrown longtime employees under the bus and probably
ruined their careers with innuendo about wrongdoing. Noting that there is no evidence that the $3
million went missing, she comments also that the district’s ability properly to
track nearly one billion dollars in transactions per year, she says that “Every
third party who’s reviewed MPS finances---
from auditors to investigators---
has said throughout the Lisa Sayles-Adams’s time as superintendent that
the district lacks the financial controls necessary for managing an
organization of its size. The Board of
Education has heard this finding for years.”
Similarly
with regard to treatment of longtime fiancé officials at the Minneapolis Public
Schools,
Retired
MPS principal Jim Clark told Lonetree that he considers the finance division’s
issues to be partly to staffing cuts, a consequence of the district’s failure
to address a glut of underutilized school
buildings that added to the financial burden of the district.
“They’ve
been talking about the need to close some of the smaller schools and
never done it,” Clark told Lonetree. “They
take money where they need to take it, and the departments suffer.” Of Diop, Clark said, he “was so trusted by
everyone who knew him. If you’d talk to all the principals, they’d say he was a
good man; he knew what he was doing.”
And
former MPS Board of Education member Jenny Arneson, a former Minneapolis school
board told Lonetree that Diop excelled, even though his team lacked the
“segregation of duties” that ensures no one staff member is likely to
contravene proper procedures.
Of the
former MPS Senior Finance Officer, Arneson said, “I have always thought highly
of Mr. Diop, and it wasn’t just me. He
and his team were recognized nationally while I was on the board, and our
credit rating was high. We had relatively positive audits, although they always
suggested we further segregate duties, which I understood to be difficult given
the department’s limited resources.”
These
sentiments resonate with an article (13 June 2026) written by Star Tribune business
columnist Evan Ramstad. Writing that “A
hasty, messy removal of three finance leaders at the start of the year has
turned into what appears to be a deflection effort” constituting “the strange
ouster of Minneapolis school finance officials at a critical time.”
Ramstad,
after reviewing the evidence and interviewing Ibrahima Diop, writes,
“To me,
it’s an unfair ending to the tenure of the second most-powerful administrator
in Minneapolis schools and two others caught in the maelstrom. Diop until then had a solid public reputation.
After
landing at a district with enormous competitive pressures and declining enrollment in
2015, Diop restored MPS’ bond rating, boosted its budget reserves and navigated
a deficit two years later that foreshadowed the one it now faces. He won a
national award as top CFO among big-city schools
in 2022.”
