Report: State unlikely to recover $1 mil from school

An audit has harsh conclusions for former Gov. Rod Blagojevich, saying his administration showed "a lack of due diligence" when granting $1 million promised to a church that ended up with a private school in downtown Chicago.

The report out Wednesday from the Illinois Auditor General's office finds that an unnamed member of Blagojevich's staff directed the state money to Chicago's Loop Lab School instead of the fire-damaged Pilgrim Baptist Church in January 2006. At the time the misappropriation was uncovered, Blagojevich called it "a bureaucratic mistake."

The school used the money to purchase space in a downtown building. The report found Illinois "will likely recover very little of the $1 million grant to the school."