MILWAUKEE, Wis. — Milwaukee Public Schools lost roughly $450,000 to a scam in which an outside party posed as its bank, the district said Tuesday, and it has put a new acting chief financial officer in charge of its money while investigators dig in.
District leaders said they learned of the fraud on Monday. So far $255,000 has been clawed back through U.S. Bank, which handles the district’s accounts, leaving about $195,000 still missing.
The district reported the theft to the Milwaukee Police Department, the FBI and the Wisconsin Statewide Intelligence Center, and it flagged the case to its own Office of Accountability and Efficiency. It has not said how the scheme worked, when the money moved or how staff caught it.
Superintendent Brenda Cassellius called the loss a sobering example of the polished scams that hit organizations nationwide. She said the district is tightening its internal procedures and thanked federal, state and local law enforcement for working the case.
Deputy Chief Financial Officer Jennifer Buros is stepping in as acting CFO for the length of the investigation. Charles Burbridge will help her through the Council of the Great City Schools, a group that supports the largest urban districts in the country. Buros came to MPS over the summer after working at the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction.
The district would not discuss personnel matters but said Aycha Sawa, the former Milwaukee comptroller hired as CFO in September 2024, still works for MPS.
MPS is running its own internal review and adding short- and long-term financial controls. The loss lands as the district keeps working through money management problems that triggered a leadership shakeup in 2024. A similar scam in 2025 tricked City of Milwaukee staff into sending a $460,866 library project payment to a fake account.
Section: More Milwaukee WI education news
Filed under: Milwaukee WI Education News