What the PUC Is Going on Here?
Following the money in local politics is an important way of seeing which people, companies, and organized interests are investing in particular candidates. Closely examining contribution reports often provides insights into who may want to pull the strings of officials who make policy and spending decisions or influence those seeking to win an elected position in which they will make such decisions.
So it’s surprising to look at a contribution report that indicates a campaign may be playing the game of donor influence in reverse. In the contest for L.A. school board, in District 5, charter-school treasurer Ref Rodriguez is challenging former teacher and board member Bennett Kayser for the seat Kayser holds representing Eagle Rock, Highland Park, and several Eastside neighborhoods.
Rodriguez’ campaign disclosure filings with the City of Los Angeles show that several staffers of his charter school, Partnerships to Uplift Communities (PUC), gave small donations in December 2014, before a filing deadline at the end of the year. What is odd and striking about several of the donations is that they come from PUC staffers who first made a very small donation early in the month and then, in the last 3 days of the year, suddenly ponied up the largest donation allowed by campaign ethics laws. Six donated the maximum $1,100. One paid $850.
Did candidate Rodriguez, who serves as treasurer of PUC, exert any influence over who and how much employees of his charter school donated? Or did anyone else at PUC have a hand in this pattern of 7 donations that looks very unusual on its face?
It’s common for workers to give money to a boss who is running for office. Year-end contributions from PUC staffers to Rodriguez are not surprising as gestures of good will.
What is highly irregular about this pattern of donations to Rodriguez, however, is the job category of the PUC employees and the timing of their donations.
A janitor, a tutor, a parent organizer, two maintenance workers, a kitchen manager, and an office manager would not raise eyebrows for donating $25, $50, or even $100 to a candidate, as these seven PUC workers did within days of each other in mid-December 2014.
Rodriguez’ name and PUC financial management practices have come under scrutiny by the inspector general of the Los Angeles Unified School District, which oversees local charter schools.
Rodriguez’ name and PUC financial management practices have come under scrutiny by the inspector general of the Los Angeles Unified School District, which oversees local charter schools.
But for those same workers then to shell out amounts of $1,075, $1,000, $975, and $800 almost immediately thereafter, and so uniformly, during the holiday season, at a time when the costs of gifts or family travel often hit middle-class families in the wallet, is certainly an unusual pattern.
What makes the pattern even more unusual is the fact that Rodriguez’ name and PUC financial management practices have come under scrutiny by the inspector general of the Los Angeles Unified School District, which oversees local charter schools.
An audit of PUC finances and procedures released last week by the district found “numerous fiscal oversight deficiencies” and “budgetary problems” at PUC. The problems were serious enough to risk “creating an environment where the potential for errors, improprieties, or other undesirable outcomes occurring is increased.” The audit determined that PUC was “not in compliance” with “its charter agreement.”
A separate audit involving PUC made headlines in the L.A. Times this past weekend, finding an “apparent conflict of interest” in how the charter-school group awarded a contract for millions of dollars in food service. For the past 5 years, according to the Times, a director at PUC benefited from a deal between PUC and Better 4 You Meals, a company described in PUC’s own documents as “one hundred percent owned” by her.
A little digging by The Times shows that the food-service company made the maximum contributions to Rodriguez’ primary and runoff campaigns, totaling $2,200. The Times report also notes that Rodriguez sits on PUC’s board of directors and “works part-time as its treasurer.”
Is the pattern of unusual end-of-year donations by PUC employees tied to financial “improprieties” at PUC? Were these end-of-year windfalls for Rodriguez’ campaign the earnest and very generous donations of loyal underlings touched by the holiday spirit and digging very deep, all at the same time? Or might PUC have used the names of its employees to mask company resources, or those of other large donors to Rodriguez, to bolster his contribution totals in the end-of-year 2014 report?
Rodriguez is competing in a May 19 runoff. Several of his supporters hope to secure a pro-charter-school majority on L.A.’s school board. When it comes to the unusual pattern of donations to Rodriguez’ campaign, local voters may not get any answers before the election. But in the interest of public integrity, at least the questions should be on the record.Ref Rodriguez:
Hans Johnson and Hector Huezo
