What would you rather be? A mid-level bureaucrat monitoring fiscal matters in the school district or a millionaire?
Find the answer to this question in this article about Philadelphia.
“MANY OF the recent charter bond deals have been helped by Santilli & Thomson, a New Jersey-based firm that has made millions off consulting contracts and bond fees.
“The firm, run by ex-School District of Philadelphia finance officials Gerald Santilli and Michael Thomson, touts on its website “more than 50 years of combined experience in municipal school management.”
“There is no way to know exactly how much Santilli & Thomson has earned in taxpayer-funded contracts from charter schools, according to a district spokesman. The firm did not respond to numerous requests for comment.
“However, a Philly.com analysis of financial documents for several charter schools that received municipal bonds found that Santilli & Thomson has billed at least $5 million since 2010….
“After working for 14 years as executive director of fiscal management for the school district, Santilli moved into charter consulting full time in 1999, shortly before String Theory was founded.
“Santilli personally helped found several other schools, like First Philadelphia Charter and its sister school, Tacony Academy, before starting his own consulting firm with Thomson.
“After a while, it appears [Santilli] realized that this could be a lucrative and growing business, and that he could make more money doing the work on his own,” said former school district chief financial officer Michael Masch.
“Santilli & Thomson was subpoenaed as part of a federal investigation into charter corruption in 2010, but no one there was ever charged with a crime and the firm’s contracts have continued to grow. The charters that Santilli helped found have become some of his biggest clients and secured some of the biggest bond deals in city history.
“What Santilli does to facilitate these arrangements is unclear. Consultants like Santilli & Thomson face little scrutiny from the Pennsylvania Department of Education.”
Other firms have also reaped the benefits of charter consulting. The best pay-off comes when the company that owns the charter owns the space used by the school and pays itself large leasing fees. Sweet.
“Reimbursements rose 79 percent – to $6.8 million annually – while the number of charter schools increased by just 20 percent, state records show. Only a fraction goes to schools that rent their buildings from unrelated owners.
“The issue isn’t limited to Philadelphia, according to state Auditor General Eugene DePasquale, who is conducting a statewide review of charter leases.
“About half the charter schools we’ve audited basically have this circular arrangement where there’s an entity that owns the building and an entity that leases the building, and they’re connected,” he said.”
Read more at http://www.philly.com/philly/news/20150914_The_get-richbusiness_of_charter_consulting.html#LIKI5ysP4FrAUQ3E.99
Diane Ravitch's blog 
When will there be some type of oversight over public funds. Shouldn’t this give away of taxpayer dollars to private concerns have some input by the public. I say the school districts, departments of education, state and local., should be sued for failure to perform due diligence over public monies.
Great comment, Paula. Yes indeed.
Article III of the Pennsylvania Constitution says:
Section 14: The General Assembly shall provide for the maintenance and support of a thorough and efficient system of public education to serve the needs of the Commonwealth.
Section 15: No money raised for the support of the public schools of the Commonwealth shall be appropriated to or used for the support of any sectarian school.
Section 30: No appropriation shall be made to any charitable or educational institution not under the absolute control of the Commonwealth, other than normal schools established by law for the professional training of teachers for the public schools of the State, except by a vote of two-thirds of all the members elected to each House.
***
If Constitutions are ignored, doesn’t this mean we no longer have a democracy?
You should contact the League of Women Voters as they led the charge in Washington, and you may also get some advice from the Education Law Center in New Jersey. You may have grounds to pursue a lawsuit.
A system should be introduced by the government to tell public that where their tax money is being spent and what is their feedback about it
It reached a kind of tipping point in Ohio and then there were daily media pieces on the problems. It takes years, but it does happen. I figured it would happen (eventually) in PA because they have really, really bad charter laws and the operators get entrenched and fight regulation, which is partly ideological, but mostly just because a whole industry grows up around charters- there are the consultants and the accounting shops and various contractors who provide services… it’s huge in Ohio. They spin off a whole group of for-profit businesses.
This is a good piece on it:
“And it’s not just the buildings. The School District’s charter oversight office is still understaffed and under-resourced. And charter operators frequently bristle at the prospect of more accountability. But something’s got to give here. The charter movement can’t keep growing and eating up tax dollars while operating in the relative darkness.”
Michigan will be next, but it won’t happen until Snyder is out of office because he’s a privatization zealot.
Read more at http://www.phillymag.com/citified/2015/09/17/charter-school-problems/#sRcLAQMjE0LfqaZ5.99