Aspira offers no answers on charter school financial anomalies

Aspira, a non-profit that runs multiple Philadelphia charter schools, yesterday denounced "allegations of financial mismanagement" made against it "by a small yet vocal minority."

Last August, City Paper reported that a recent audit had found that as of June 2012 Aspira Inc. of Pennsylvania ran a deficit of $722,949 and owed its publicly financed charter schools $3.3 million. That's in addition to the $6.3 million in administrative fees that the charters paid to Aspira in 2012, and $1.5 million in lease payments to Aspira and Aspira-controlled property-management entities ACE and ACE/Dougherty.

Public-education advocates and teachers seeking to an organize a union at Olney Charter High School, backed by the American Federation of Teachers, have also been critics of Aspira's financial practices.

Yesterday's press release stated that "ASPIRA and ASPIRA Schools have had eight auditing bodies conduct 20 audits that did not or have not reported financial mismanagement." But Aspira has not responded to any of the particular financial anomalies uncovered by City Paper. And Aspira CEO Alfredo Calderon and COO Orlando Rendon have not yet responded to an interview request. Last August, Rendon had pledged to answer City Paper's questions but later declined to do so.

Aspira's finances came under renewed scrutiny over the past week after the School District of Philadelphia proposed that Aspira take over management of Muñoz-Marin Elementary School as part of the District's Renaissance turnaround program. Aspira currently runs four brick-and-mortar charter schools and one cyber charter: Eugenio Maria de Hostos Charter School, John B. Stetson Charter School, Olney Charter High School, Antonia Pantoja Charter School and Aspira Bilingual Cyber Charter School.

In a 2010 report, City Controller Alan Butkovitz criticized the practice by which charter schools use public funds to pay rent to a related party.

"Properties that are being paid for with taxpayer funds are being either transferred [to] or controlled by nonprofits with no accountability to the school district or taxpayers," Butkovitz's report concluded.

State Auditor General Eugene DePasquale has found similar problems with charter real estate financing. Last year, he concluded that Chester Community Charter School had improperly employed a "circular lease arrangements" by which the charter is "essentially leasing the buildings to itself."

Charter schools cannot be reimbursed for properties that they own, and state lease reimbursements to charter schools are not supposed to be used to support the acquisition of property. In 2012, Aspira owed lenders $16.8 million on its properties.

Last August, City Paper also revealed that participants in a May 2013 Olney Charter trustees meeting stated that staff had used debit cards without providing receipts.

Last August, the School District told City Paper it was looking into the debit card issue, and that the audit office and charter school offices were examining the lease payments. The District has not yet responded to a request for comment today, and the status of those reviews is unclear.

Aspira has also been criticized for spending public funds to fight the Olney High School teachers who are attempting to organize a union. Aspira has paid Eckert Seamans Cherin & Mellott, LLC, a law firm with expertise in fighting unionization efforts, at least $72,163.33 for Olney-related matters, according to seven 2013 invoices.

Among the audits that Aspira says have been completed is one conducted by U.S. Department of Education Inspector General examining "Stetson Charter and its relationship with ASPIRA."

But Catherine Grant, an Inspector General spokesperson, says that the work conducted was not an audit and that it is not yet complete.

"We did not conduct an audit of Stetson charter school. We did look at them as a part of larger work that we're doing involving the U.S. Department of Education's oversight of charter-school-management organizations."

Aspira also said that an audit of Olney Charter High School had been completed by the "City Comptroller's [sic] Office."

But City Controller spokesperson Brian Dries said that the office "has not released an audit of Olney charter."