Closed school slated for probe

Wilkinsburg - The investigative branch of the state Auditor General's Office is reviewing the financial management of a charter school that was closed by the Wilkinsburg School Board in January.

"We think there's something there that warrants an investigation," said Sandy Williams, a spokeswoman for the office of state Auditor General Bob Casey Jr.

But the former president of the school disagrees, claiming he could have cleared up some issues in question if investigators had only asked him.

Casey's office on Tuesday released an audit that states, among other shortcomings, that the Thurgood Marshall Academy in Wilkinsburg overpaid rent to the nonprofit organization it leased its school building from by close to $250,000 over a 31-month period.

The audit is for the fiscal year ending June 30, 2000, but includes findings and recommendations through Sept. 28, 2001.

Department of State records indicate that the nonprofit South Avenue Association owns the building at 747 South Ave. in Wilkinsburg that was used by the school from 1999 through January of this year.

Those records also indicate that the South Avenue Association was formed as a nonprofit in May 1999 with the stated purpose of refurbishing the building on South Avenue, the former Masonic Temple, to be used as a public school.

In a segment of the audit titled "Related Party Transactions," the auditors state their concern with a possible conflict of interest in the administration of the charter school and the association.

"The president of the charter school's board of trustees is also the chief executive officer of South Avenue Association, which rented the building to the charter school," the audit states.

Department of Education records from 2001 indicate that Aaron Scales was listed as the president of the Thurgood Marshall Academy's board of directors, according to Jeff McCloud, a spokesman with the department.

And Department of State records indicate that Scales also was the chief executive officer of the South Avenue Association.

But Scales disagrees with the characterization of his involvement by the auditors and in state documents.

"They're just fishing for stuff that, if they had taken the time and asked me, they would know that I was not president of South Avenue and president of Thurgood Marshall at the same time," Scales said yesterday.

Scales said no one from the Auditor General's office interviewed him in preparing the audit.

Scales said he resigned as the president of South Avenue Association in December 2000 and did not accept the presidency of the Thurgood Marshall Academy board until February 2001. He said he did not formally take on the duties as president until March 2001.

Scales said he had been a member of the Thurgood Marshall Board since 1999.

He said he was the top officer of South Avenue Association for a period of time but that there was no chief executive organization for the South Avenue Association.

He said he took no actions on his own as president of South Avenue Association but that members of the nonprofit voted on decisions. He declined to say how many members of the South Avenue Association there are.

Scales said the higher rent payments the audit refers to reflect payments for remodeling that was done at the school and the cost of which was covered by the South Avenue Association.

Scales said the remodeling was ordered by Priscilla Jones, the previous president of the Thurgood Marshall board, and Patrice Johnson, the school's former chief administrative officer.

He said the remodeling was ordered without the knowledge of the Thurgood Marshall board and could not be paid for immediately due to the withholding of funds by the Wilkinsburg School District.

Jones stepped down from the presidency of Thurgood Marshall in January 2001, and Johnson's position was eliminated by a 7-1 vote of the board of trustees a year ago today.

Johnson and Jones could not be reached for comment.

The audit states that the school's lease agreement called for the rent for the South Avenue building to be $15,958 per month. But the audit found that the school paid $23,959 per month.

The audit says the school should have paid $498,698 in rent over 31 months of the school's existence but instead paid $742,725 per month.

Scales said the school paid an additional $20,000 per month for a time to make up the cost of the renovations but that the rent payment went down to $18,100 a month in August 2001.

The audit also states that treasurer/secretary of the association, whom state records identify as Brian Magan, was also a member of the board of directors of the Thurgood Marshall Academy.

Magan was a former member of the Wilkinsburg School Board, who resigned from the school board in June 1997, according to the audit. He could not be reached for comment.

The school, the enrollment of which varied from fewer than 100 students to more than 200 during its life, opened in the 1999-2000 school year and received approximately $1.7 million per year in funding from the Wilkinsburg School District.

Citing numerous legal, financial and academic problems at the charter school, the Wilkinsburg School Board voted unanimously to close Thurgood Marshall on December 18, the day after the state's Charter Schools Appeals Board voted to deny an appeal of the school board's July 16 decision to revoke the school's charter.

But the district and the charter school are still entangled over the issue of the distribution of the charter school's assets.

Isabel Storch, the solicitor for the Wilkinsburg School District, said there will be a hearing today in front of Common Pleas Court Judge Judith Friedman on the school district's request for an injunction ordering the charter school administrators to place the school's assets in the hands of either the school district or a neutral third party.

Storch said the charter school officials contend that they have a number of creditors whom they must satisfy before they can turn the assets of the charter school over to the school district.

But she said the district would prefer to see the computers and furniture and other assets of the charter school removed from the building at 747 South Ave. for security purposes.

A written statement from Casey's office yesterday states that Friedman may determine whether an additional $79,790 that could be owed to the South Avenue Association should be paid on a lease the school had with the association which expires at the end of June.

Andy Evankovich, the attorney who represents the charter school, could not be reached for comment yesterday.