Senator Eliot Shapleigh - El Paso, Texas

The Travis County district attorney's office is investigating a criminal complaint involving the Texas Education Agency's watchdog unit, an official in the district attorney's office confirmed Monday.

"We have received it and we are looking into it," said Beverly Mathews, a Travis assistant district attorney. She said she could not give details about the complaint because it's part of a pending investigation.

But two former TEA inspectors said the complaint involves allegations of fraud, waste and abuse in the agency and several school districts that they received while working in the agency's Office of Inspector General. The former employees, who were fired in July, said they weren't allowed to investigate the allegations, a charge TEA has denied.

Former inspectors James Catazaro and Jim Lyde said they discussed the complaints in June with the state attorney general's office, which in turn forwarded the matter to the Travis County district attorney's office.

Mr. Catazaro and Mr. Lyde said they received numerous allegations involving school districts, including about kickbacks paid from a teacher to a superintendent and nepotism and possible fraud in awarding a multimillion-dollar construction project.

Some complaints involved TEA directly, Mr. Catazaro said. In one case, he said, the agency planned to spend several hundred thousand dollars on computer software that could be built in-house for free.

Mr. Catazaro said he and other investigators were told not to look into such matters because it wasn't their charge.

TEA spokeswoman DeEtta Culbertson said the agency appropriately handles any complaints or allegations it receives, and it refers complaints to other agencies when necessary. She said TEA had not been contacted by the Travis County district attorney's office about its investigation but would fully cooperate.

Mr. Catazaro and Mr. Lyde have appealed their firings to the TEA. They say they were punished for raising concerns about the agency, which TEA leaders deny.

TEA's inspector general office was created in 2006. It had seven people on staff at its peak but is now down to one employee and an interim director. Some state lawmakers are pushing for one independent office to investigate fraud and waste in major state agencies.