Students holding on to ousted pol’s scholarships
SPRINGFIELD — Seven college students will get to keep a valuable tuition perk bestowed upon them by indicted former state Rep. Derrick Smith even though he wound up being expelled by the Illinois House last week, a state education official told the Chicago Sun-Times on Thursday.
In May, two months after he was arrested for allegedly accepting a $7,000 cash bribe in an undercover FBI sting, Smith handed out $185,000 worth of tuition waivers in a move that Gov. Pat Quinn at the time called “very disap- pointing.”
Smith’s rush to get the tuition waivers out the door came shortly before state lawmakers and Quinn ended the scandal-plagued legislative scholarship program Sept. 1, though the law abolishing them allowed sitting legislators like Smith (D-Chicago) to award one last batch of waivers for the 2012-2013 school year.
“Our stance is basically, at the time he awarded the scholarships, he was a lawfully elected representative and was exercising the duties of his office,” said Mary Fergus, a spokeswoman for the State Board of Education. “He awarded the scholarships, which now essen- tially are the property of the students.”
She added that if Attorney General Lisa Madigan wished to review the state board’s position on Smith’s waivers “we’d certainly work with them.”
A Madigan spokesman did not have an immediate comment Thursday when told that statement and the State Board of Education’s position on Smith’s waivers.
The former West Side lawmaker was driven out of the Illinois House last Friday because of the federal bribery allegation against him, making him the first state representative to be expelled by the chamber since 1905. He remains on the Novem- ber ballot and could return to the House in January if he prevails in the general election against third-party candidate Lance Tyson.