jessica kourkounis
EXTRA CREDIT: Aspira Inc. of Pennsylvania, headquartered on North Fifth Street, owed its publicly funded charter schools $3.3 million, according to an independent audit.
The Philadelphia School District will spend a projected $729 million on charter schools in the coming fiscal year. But, if the past year at one charter operator is any indication, not all of those funds will actually go toward serving students.
Aspira Inc. of Pennsylvania owed large sums of money to four Philadelphia charter schools it runs, according to an independent audit of the organization’s finances as of June 30, 2012, that was obtained by City Paper. According to the report, which was produced for Aspira and completed in April, the nonprofit was running a deficit of $722,949 as of last June and owed the publicly financed schools $3.3 million. That’s in addition to millions of dollars in lease payments and administrative fees filtered to Aspira and entities it controls with no oversight.
“That money is being given to fulfill the purposes of the charter, which is to run the school,” says Michael Masch, a former chief financial officer at the District and budget secretary under Gov. Ed Rendell. “It’s taxpayer money, and it’s limited as to its use.”
The questions over Aspira’s finances highlight the School District’s weak oversight of charter schools at a time when the District is struggling to close a budget gap that initially stood at $304 million, prompting the layoff of nearly 4,000 teachers, counselors and other staff.
Aspira Inc. of Pennsylvania, once a small nonprofit providing services to the Puerto Rican community, has in a few years’ time mushroomed into one of the city’s largest charter-