In Lease Agreements, Charter Management Companies Rip Off Their Students and the Public
On January 10, 2019, as one of his final actions as Ohio Auditor of State, Dave Yost released a report about how three Charter Management Companies (CMOs)—National Heritage Academies, Imagine Schools and Concept Schools—have been profiting when their own real estate subsidiaries demand outrageous leasing fees from the charter schools managed by the same National Heritage Academies, Imagine Schools and Concept Schools.
Without any competitive bidding, charter schools being managed by the three CMOs have been forced to pay above market rents for school buildings, when they could have spent the per-pupil dollars allotted to them by the state for paying teachers or otherwise serving their students.
For the Columbus Dispatch, Jim Siegel reports: “In 2015, 77 percent of charter schools leased their buildings. Yost looked at lease agreements with eight schools managed by National Heritage, 13 by Imagine Schools and 17 by Concept Schools. His office found that the average rent paid per pupil ranged from $1,472 at Concept to $2,325 at Imagine, considerably higher than the $848 paid by a random sampling of six other Ohio charter schools not under a management agreement.”
In the new report, Community School Facility Procurement, Yost blames weak charter school regulation by the Ohio Legislature: “Shortcomings in current Ohio law, lax oversight, and support programs geared toward community schools (Ohio’s name for charter schools) have allowed private companies to enter into questionable lease agreements with community CONTINUE READING: In Lease Agreements, Charter Management Companies Rip Off Their Students and the Public | janresseger