DETROIT -- Fresh off his win Tuesday for Detroit City Charter Commission, Freman Hendrix appeared Wednesday at a Detroit Public Schools hearing on questionable real estate transactions the district has been involved in over the past several years.

State-appointed DPS Emergency Financial Manager Robert Bobb has been holding a series of public investigative hearings and calling witnesses to testify about property deals that may have negatively impacted the district.

"One of the reasons I've convened these hearings is because of the wealth of information my office has obtained through our tip line," Bobb said.

Bobb said the potential abuse of funding stems from a bond proposal Detroiters approved in 1994 in which $1.5 billion was at the administration's disposal for capital improvements.

“Clearly we overspent millions of dollars in real estate transactions that we should not have,” said Bobb.

In a hearing on Oct. 22, Bobb questioned if the district had paid too much for its move to new offices in the Fisher Building.

It cost the district $34 million to purchase and rebuild five floors in the building.

Mark Schrupp, who has served as a lawyer and director of facilities for the district, said there were plenty of other inexpensive buildings that were available at the time that the district could have chosen from.

Schrupp said the Farbman Group served as a broker to help it find more locations.

"Normally, when you hire a broker group, they’re acting with fiduciary duties for the purchaser. And certainly if they are willing to sell you something they own, they really lose that fiduciary duty,” Schrupp said. “They become opposed to you, in a sense of your transaction. They cannot represent interests."

The district ended up buying the Fisher Building space from the Farbman Group.

Investigators said the Farbman Group bought the property in 2001 for approximately $34 per square foot and the next year, the Farbman Group sold the property to DPS for $182 per square foot.

"It makes you question how hard did they look for you when the ultimate transaction is the sale of something that they own,” Schrupp said. “And as you see, the numbers here seem pretty glaring in terms of the purchase price that we ended up paying."

A spokesman for the Farbman Group said the company will testify to show that the real estate deals were good for the district.

Hendrix was previously the chair of the reform commission appointed by Gov. Jennifer Granholm to oversee the school board and he was questioned at Wednesday's hearing about the district's decision to move its headquarters to the Fisher Building.

Hendrix said he has just as many questions himself about the suspected abuse of funds.

"My recollection is that the board did not do a lot of oversight and monitoring," he said. "I think that as I look back and think about that, if there weren't then there should have been.

Bobb said anyone with information on past real estate deals is asked to call the DPS Inspector General tip line at 313-870-3436