The city’s schools investigation office completed more cases than ever last year, but saw its confirmation rate drop by 10 percentage points since 2007, new data show.
The Office of Special Commissioner of Investigation Richard Condon completed 791 cases in 2010 — ranging from a Queens principal soliciting oral sex from students to a vendor overbilling the city school system by $1 million.
That’s up 24 percent from 2007, when 635 cases were closed.
At the same time, probers substantiated 39 percent of the cases completed last year — compared to a 49 percent in 2007.
The last time the confirmation rate fell below 40 percent was 2003, according to SCI data.
Condon said some of the bunk cases arise when feuding administrators and teachers file false charges against one another.
“That [number’s] going to rise and fall depending on the nature of the cases you take and whether the evidence is there,” he said.
Condon’s office referred 110 cases to prosecutors last year — a 15 percent uptick compared to 2009 — and barred 189 current and former staffers from ever working for the agency again.