SALT LAKE CITY — The Granite School District shared that its offices have received threats of violence against employees after the Department of Government Efficiency made accusations of financial fraud and taxpayer abuse.
On Friday, a DOGE social media post claimed the district spent "roughly $86,000" of COVID relief funds for employees to attend a conference in Las Vegas. The district immediately refuted inaccuracies in the claims, adding that the trip had been approved by the Utah Board of Education.
Immediately following the allegations, the district said it was "flooded with dozens of angry phone calls, emails, and social media posts. Mostly from out of state. Many of these calls and emails contained explicit language and threats of violence against our staff," which were later deemed by police to be non-credible.
"I think we just need to tone the rhetoric down, I think it's just not helpful," said France Barral, president of the Churchill Junior High School PTSA.
Barral, who also has a child at Skyline High School, said when she heard about the controversy, she did her own research and is convinced the district did nothing wrong.
"It turns out it was innocuous," she said. "Meeting of teachers who were being trained on how to be better teachers, and just happened that it was in Las Vegas, which is a place where a lot of people have their conferences."
Video below shows timeline of Granite-DOGE showdown:
The onslaught of calls, emails, and messages was alarming to the district.
"We had a lot of people who were just saying you’re the scum of the earth, you should go to jail, You should stay off the street, watch your back, just a lot of different things like that," explained district spokesperson Andrea Stringham.
The district said the DOGE claims are "complete false," with Stringham adding that agency left out that the district was given the green light to use the surplus COVID relief funds for teacher training.
"The claim that there was no oversight is completely false, we had a lot of oversight at the state level that these funds were being used appropriately," she said.
Barral thinks people are too quick these days to jump to conclusions before knowing the full story.
"It's fair for the Granite School District to get a phone call and say what’s happening," she said. "What is not fair is using vulgar language, using threats. That is absolutely unjustified."
