Bogus leases. Altered child custody decrees. Phony driver’s licenses.

Private investigator Bill Beitler has seen it all while working for dozens of Southland school districts where he’s helped catch families attempting to flout residency laws over the past decade.

And this year is no different.

From far-flung south suburban communities to those that border Chicago, school districts have tapped Beitler’s firm, National Investigations, to help put a lid on nonresident enrollment.

His caseload so far this year? 6,000 students, half of whom are in the Southland, he said.

Like others looking for help investigating students whose residence seems suspect, Evergreen Park School District 231 hired Beitler’s company this year.

Hiring the firm is not a luxury, Supt. Jim Gallagher said. Given the number of students trying to sneak into the district, it’s a necessity, he said.

“You have to spend a lot of time on it,” Gallagher said. “It gets pretty stressful.”

All school districts are required by state law to give families ample opportunity to prove their residency. Families also are entitled to administrative hearings, and Gallagher has nearly two dozen scheduled so far this fall.

That families are subject to the investigations should come as no surprise, District 218 security director Ellen Egan said.

“We reserve the right to investigate — it’s on the registration (form),” she said.

District 218 also works with National Investigations.

Lines of defense

At registration kiosks every August, school staffers across the region are busy examining tax bills, leases or mortgage documents, which parents are required to bring to prove they live in district.

The school employees are the first line of defense in keeping nonresidents out, because they’re able to spot the obvious red flags, like no lease and lots of excuses.

“It’s a huge process,” said Tinley Park High School Associate Principal Randy Couwenhoven, who has been swamped with residency issues during his first month as an administrator at the school.

“But you have to do it,” he said. “You want to be fair to your taxpayers.”

And for some, that can mean going so far as to bring private investigators into the registration process. In some districts, for example, even driver’s licenses are subject to examination through security equipment to determine authenticity.

Investigators also comb through databases for clues, looking for things like multiple, unrelated students claiming to live at the same address. In 2005, a similar search resulted in Thornton Township High School District 205 kicking out nearly 200 students who were found to have faked their addresses.

Other times, the investigators are working behind the lens of a camera, documenting fraudulent residency.

Caught in a lie

Staking out families with surveillance equipment to find out exactly what house they leave from each morning might seem harsh, Beitler admits.

Even for the hardened investigator, catching a family in a lie can be emotional, he says.

“You feel bad that the kids have to go. But it’s not fair to the taxpayers from the district,” Beitler said. “For every $10,000 you save on a nonresident student you can invest in people who live there.”

That’s the reason the Evergreen Park district goes after nonresidents who dupe the system.

During the past school year, the district sicked a collection agency on 15 families who were found out.

It costs $66.30 a day to educate a student, and Gallagher said it’s his responsibility to the taxpayers to get that money back. Nearly a decade ago, the district also sought to prosecute a woman who falsified documents to fraudulently enroll a child at the high school — a Class C misdemeanor.

“This is basically fraud,” District 231 discipline director John McGuire said.

“They’re defrauding taxpayers and school districts out of their money.”