Regional Feds’ Head-Hunting Under Scrutiny Over Insider Bias, Delays
New York/Washington. Efforts to fill top positions at some US Federal Reserve regional branches are casting a spotlight...
New York/Washington. Efforts to fill top positions at some US Federal Reserve regional branches are casting a spotlight on a decades-old process that critics say is opaque, favors insiders, and is ripe for reform.
Patrick Harker took the reins as president of the Philadelphia Fed this week, in an appointment that attracted scrutiny because he served on the committee of directors that interviewed other prospective candidates for the job he ultimately took.
The Dallas Fed has been without a permanent president for more than three months as that search process stretches well into its eighth month. And the Fed’s Minneapolis branch abruptly announced the departure of its leader, Narayana Kocherlakota, more than a year before he was due to go, with no replacement named to date.
The delays and reliance on Fed employees in picking regional Fed presidents can only embolden Republican Senator Richard Shelby to push harder for a makeover of the central bank’s structure, which has changed little in its 101 years.
A bill passed in May by the Senate Banking Committee that Shelby chairs would strip the New York Fed’s board of its power to appoint its presidents. And it could go further, given the bill would form a committee to consider a wholesale overhaul of the Fed’s structure of 12 districts, which has not changed through the decades of shifting US populations and an evolving economy.
The bill is part of a broader conservative effort to expose the central bank to more oversight, and some analysts saw the Philadelphia Fed’s choice as reinforcing the view that the Fed needs to open up more to outsiders.
Nine of 11 current regional presidents came from within the Fed, a proportion that has edged up over time. Twenty years ago, seven of 12 were insiders.
“The process seems to create a diverse set of candidates in which the insider is almost always accepted,” said Aaron Klein, director of a financial regulatory reform effort at the Bipartisan Policy Center.
Since it was created in 1913, the central bank’s decentralized structure was meant to check the power of Washington, where seven Fed governors with permanent votes on policy are appointed by the White House and approved by the Senate.
The 12 Fed presidents who are picked by their regional boards usually vote on policy every two or three years, and they tend to hold more diverse views.
Former Richmond Fed President Alfred Broaddus told Reuters the regional Fed chiefs have more freedom “to do and say things that may not be politically popular” because they are not politically appointed. “On the other hand, there is the question of legitimacy since they are appointed by local boards who are not elected.”
“Tone deaf”
Two-thirds of regional Fed directors are selected by local bankers, while the rest are appointed by the Fed’s Board of Governors in Washington.
Critics question how well those regional boards — mostly made of the heads of corporations and industry groups meant to represent the public — fulfill their mission.
Last year, a non-profit group representing labor unions and community leaders organized by the Center for Popular Democracy, urged the Fed’s Philadelphia and Dallas branches to make the selection of their presidents more transparent and to include a member of the public in the effort.
Philadelphia’s Fed in particular proved “tone deaf” in its head-hunting effort, said Lou Crandall, chief economist at Wrightson ICAP in Jersey City, New Jersey.
Harker was a Philadelphia Fed director when the board started looking to replace president Charles Plosser, who left on March 1, and he was among the six directors who interviewed more than a dozen short-listed candidates for the job, according to the Philadelphia Fed.
But on Feb. 18, Harker floated his own name, recused himself from the process and a week later his colleagues on the board unanimously appointed him as the new president.
While the selection follows Fed guidelines and was approved by its Board of Governors, it raised questions of transparency and fairness.
“The Philadelphia Fed’s search process might have made perfect sense in a corporate environment, but is obviously problematic for an official institution,” said Crandall.
The board’s chair and vice chair, Swathmore Group founder James Nevels and Michael Angelakis of Comcast Corp, respectively, declined to comment, as did Harker.
Peter Conti-Brown, an academic fellow at Stanford Law School’s Rock Center for Corporate Governance, and an expert witness at a Senate Banking Committee hearing this year, proposed to let the Fed Board appoint and fire regional Fed presidents or at least have a say in the selection process.
In the past, reform proposals for the 12 regional Fed banks have focused on decreasing or increasing their number and their governance.
Changes to the way the regional Fed bosses are chosen could strengthen the influence of lawmakers at the expense of regional interests.
For now, delays in appointments of new chiefs force regional banks to send relatively unknown deputies to debate monetary policy at meetings in Washington, as Dallas and Philadelphia did last month when the Fed considered raising interest rates for the first time in nearly a decade.
The Minneapolis Fed still has time to find a new president before Kocherlakota steps down at year end.
“For now the Fed criticism is just noise, mostly from Republicans,” said Greg Valliere, chief political strategist at Potomac Research Group. “But once the Fed begins to raise interest rates … then the left will weigh in as well.”
Source: Jakarta Globe
Commentary: I need the economy to give me a fair chance
Commentary: I need the economy to give me a fair chance
I'VE ALWAYS enjoyed talking with people, and, as long as I can remember, I wanted to work in the hotel industry. It's...
I'VE ALWAYS enjoyed talking with people, and, as long as I can remember, I wanted to work in the hotel industry. It's been my dream to work with guests at the front desk to make sure they have the best experience possible.
As an African-American woman, I knew that lucky breaks weren't going to be handed to me, so I did everything I could to achieve my dreams. I went to school and got my bachelor's degree in hospitality and hotel management in 2000 from the Indiana University of Pennsylvania.
However, apart from a brief internship after college at the Best Western and a year at the Hilton working at the switchboard, which was almost a decade ago, I haven't been able to find work in my chosen field - a field in which I have a degree.
I've heard people say the recession is over because the unemployment rate is about 5 percent. But I can tell you that things are still really bad in the black community. Currently, unemployment for blacks is about 9 percent.
I've always been politically active and serve as the judge of elections in my voting district. So when I heard about a campaign that calls on the Federal Reserve to ensure that everybody gets decent paying work, including black folks, I was eager to join.
When I got my degree 16 years ago, the economy was in decent shape. Armed with my degree, the internship experience and good recommendations, I didn't expect to have any problems getting a job in a hotel. I applied to two dozen jobs and, after being turned down at all of them, I had to take other kinds of jobs in food service or customer service.
Finally, after many years, I got my switchboard job at the Hilton. Even though I was getting only $10 an hour, I was excited to finally be working at a hotel and thought I would just stay there and work my way up. But the recession hit in 2008, and I was laid off a year later.
That's when things became really tough. The recession hit African-American women, even college-educated ones like me, particularly hard. I've worked on and off since 2008, but finding good work has become almost impossible. At one point, I was traveling two hours each way to get to my job at a state-run liquor store.
I eventually had to quit when I suffered severe medical issues. I was diagnosed with a neurological condition and uterine fibroids, all within a matter of months. A couple of years ago, I was able to work again and joined a job skills program. The program placed me at a job where I work part-time - only 20 hours a week - as a cashier and food server at a university dining hall.
The unemployment rate apparently counts people like me as employed, even though I don't work enough hours to pay my bills. I'm overqualified and underpaid (I earn $11.25 an hour), but since I'm working - even though I'm still on Medicaid and food stamps - I'm used as evidence to say the recession is over.
Involuntary part-time unemployment is a more accurate figure to look at. It's over 15 percent for blacks! That's a whole lot of people who aren't making ends meet, but are still being counted as working.
People need to know that the Federal Reserve has incredible power over the economy and people's lives. It might seem very abstract, but it's not. If the Federal Reserve keeps interest rates low, the economy will continue to grow and people like me will be able to find full-time jobs or better paying work. If it raises rates because it claims the economy is doing well, it will be tougher for everyone to find jobs.
I'm going to Jackson Hole, Wyo., next week to join a protest against the Federal Reserve, which holds a symposium there every year. We want the president of the Philadelphia Fed, Patrick Harker, and the rest of the Fed, to see what regular folks go through beyond the numbers in the headlines.
Every week, I still go online to look for jobs at large hotel chains. I know that one of these days I will work at a hotel again. I just need the economy to give me a fair chance.
Salwa Shabazz lives in Philadelphia and is a member of the Fed Up campaign, an initiative of the Center for Popular Democracy.
By Salwa Shabazz
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Big Demand for NYC Municipal ID Cards
Aljazeera America - January 14, 2015, by Wilson Dizard - New York City’s municipal identification card, launched...
Aljazeera America - January 14, 2015, by Wilson Dizard - New York City’s municipal identification card, launched Monday, quickly became a hot ticket, with thousands of residents eager to receive one lining up at distribution centers across the city — a volume that prompted city officials on Wednesday to start processing card applications by appointment only.
The nation’s largest city joins a handful of other municipalities — from San Francisco to Mercer County, New Jersey — that in recent years have issued their own ID cards to make life easier and safer for large populations of undocumented immigrants and anyone else in need of identification. Available free of charge to anyone 14 years or older in New York City, the cards also provide discounts at businesses and free access to some of the city's museums.
“It’s something good they should have done a long time ago," Alice King, 46, originally from Trinidad but a Brooklyn resident for the last 15 years, told local news site DNAInfo.
Based on its size alone, New York City’s program could become a model for municipal IDs in other U.S. cities, civil liberties advocates say. There are about 500,000 undocumented immigrants in New York City.
“It remains to be seen, but I think the intended effect is that New Yorkers will have a lot easier time accessing city services and being part of the economic life of the city,” said Emily Tucker, senior staff attorney with the Center for Popular Democracy, an advocacy group that published a report in 2013 hailing the use of municipal ID cards across the nation.
So far, nine U.S. municipalities issue ID cards, with most in the San Francisco or New York City metropolitan areas. Washington, D.C., has a version as well. Other cities — including Chicago and Phoenix — are looking into launching similar programs.
Supporters of municipal IDs, which were piloted in 2007 in New Haven, Connecticut, say that issuing the cards to undocumented residents fills a gap left by a lack of immigration reform in Congress.
They also say the IDs make everyone safer by allowing such residents to no longer be afraid to report crimes against them or others to police. Without identification, many undocumented immigrants fear risking deportation by speaking to authorities.
In New York City, police say they will accept the cards as an adequate form of identification, which Tucker said will “make interactions with police smoother.”
“Now police can issue a summons instead of arresting a person without ID for something like an open container violation, instead of taking them to the precinct to spend a night in jail,” she added.
The cards can help undocumented residents do simple things like open bank accounts, rent apartments, board flights and access medical help — tasks made far more difficult or even impossible without identification.
“We’ve heard of school districts where parents without ID are not able to pick up their kids from extracurricular activities,” said Layla Razvani, an attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union. “These parents are part of the community.”
Still, not everyone supports municipal ID programs. Their most vocal opponents argue that by issuing cards, municipalities are flagrantly disobeying federal laws that prohibit illegal immigration, aiding the undocumented by providing IDs to people who can’t prove they’re citizens.
“We don’t know who these people really are. We have to take their word for it. It makes it more difficult to enforce federal immigration law,” said Ira Mehlmann, a spokesman for the Federation for American Immigration Reform, a group that opposes the continued presence of undocumented immigrants in the U.S.
“They say it’s to stop them [undocumented immigrants] from being treated like second-class citizens. It’s an oxymoron. They aren’t citizens. They don’t have a legal right to be in the country,” he added.
Mehlmann particularly fears that undocumented residents could exploit municipal ID card programs to carry out acts of violence. Although he could not point to a single instance of a city ID being used in the commission of a crime, he said, “the fact that nobody with one of these IDs has committed a terrorist act yet doesn’t mean it doesn’t pose a threat.”
The New York Civil Liberties Union has also expressed skepticism about the city’s municipal ID program, wary that authorities might misuse the information provided by undocumented residents who are some of society’s most vulnerable.
NYCLU spokeswoman Jen Carnig said that the cards could make life easier for people but that police don’t have to provide the same level of probable cause to access the municipal IDs as they do for regular driver’s licenses. She credited the city with saying it would inform people whose information police have accessed, but she argued that the protections should be as strong as they are for citizens.
“No one should be subject to having their personal documents accessed by law enforcement or become subject to an investigation based on a hunch, and it’s possible that could be the case for some people,” she said.
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An Imperfect Victory for New York Workers
Millions of New Yorkers are celebrating a deal this week to raise the state’s minimum wage. The deal puts a better...
Millions of New Yorkers are celebrating a deal this week to raise the state’s minimum wage. The deal puts a better future in sight for families around the state and sends a powerful signal to other states considering wage hikes of their own.
The deal is a testament to the power of organizing. Today’s headlines would be unimaginable just a few years ago. When New York Communities for Change organized the first fast food worker strike – almost four years ago – people thought we were crazy.
As the federal government repeatedly stalled on a meaningful increase to the nationwide minimum wage, it seemed that higher wages were out of reach.
In response, fast-food and other low-wage workers rose up to fight for better wages and a better quality of life, sparking a movement that spread to cities and towns across the nation.
It is no coincidence that the Fight for $15 began right here in New York City. The level of inequality in our city has long been one of the worst of the country – and has grown to historic proportions in recent years.
According to a 2014 Census Bureau survey, the top 5 percent of Manhattan households made 88 times as much as the poorest 20 percent. And as of last year, workers earning minimum wage could not afford median rent in a single neighborhood in New York City.
Wages have long failed to keep pace with the growing cost of living. In fact, the Economic Policy Institute found that the statewide wage of $9.00 per hour was well below what it would be if it had simply kept pace with inflation since 1970. The same study found that, accounting for both inflation and a higher cost of living, the minimum wage today would match its 1970 value if it reached $14.27 per hour this year – nearly the level agreed on by the New York State Legislature.
Governor Cuomo made the right move last year by mandating higher wages for fast-food workers – those on the front lines fighting for reform. But leading industry by industry risked neglecting too many workers. In order to truly create change, the rules must apply equally to everybody. Last week’s deal did that, letting workers across the economy finally dream bigger than the next paycheck.
The deal is a victory for New York City workers. However, it bypasses hard-working families in Upstate New York. While over a million low-wage workers in the city will see their wages rise to $15 per hour by the end of 2018, those in Long Island will only reach $15 in almost six years and those upstate will need to wait five years only to reach $12.50. Although the deal allows wages to rise to $15 after that, the rate will depend on review and inflation and could take years.
It is a painfully long stretch given the growing cost of living north of the city. The New York State Comptroller, for example, has found housing costs skyrocketing, with at least one in five people in every county – including those far upstate like Warren and Monroe – spending more than a third of their salary on rent. In some counties half of residents must spend that much. With added expenses like utilities and food, it leaves little room to save up for college or retirement.
It is imperative that legislators now finish the job and give all New Yorkers a chance at a living wage.
Just days before Albany finalized its deal; California showed us that a $15 wage statewide is possible. Our state must fulfill the promise of Fight for $15 statewide and let all workers adequately provide for themselves and their families. Otherwise New Yorkers will continue doing what they have been doing for almost four years: risking everything to provide a better life for their families.
***
By JoEllen Chernow &. Jonathan Westin
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From Low Pay to High Stress: These Are the Absolute Worst Companies to Work for in America, According to Employees
From Low Pay to High Stress: These Are the Absolute Worst Companies to Work for in America, According to Employees
“American consumers have a love-hate relationship with drugstore chains and their pricey prescriptions, but it seems...
“American consumers have a love-hate relationship with drugstore chains and their pricey prescriptions, but it seems employees do as well. Disgruntled Walgreens employees site poor pay (cashiers are paid just $9 per hour) and other labor issues as major negatives. The Center for Popular Democracy tallied actual employee votes and named Walgreens the worst company in America. They’ve even been accused of promoting employees to salary positions to skirt overtime pay, resulting in employees earning less money per hour than their hourly counterparts.
Read the full article here.
New Report Details Plans for Low-Wage Worker Justice
The Village Voice - February 14, 2013 - When a worker in this city has to endure a three-hour walk to work because his...
The Village Voice - February 14, 2013 - When a worker in this city has to endure a three-hour walk to work because his minimum wage salary doesn't allow for him to afford public transportation, that's a problem.
Low-wage workers across the city have stood up in the past year to demand that such insecurity be eradicated and to pressure employers to finally begin to provide them with just compensation for their labor.
Building on the progress generated by these worker-led movements--in industries such as retail, fast-food, airline security and car washing--UnitedNY, the Center for Popular Democracy and other advocacy groups held a symposium and released a report yesterday analyzing the state of the city's low-wage worker movement.
"It's very difficult to try and make ends meet on $7.25 minimum wage in New York City," Alterique Hall, a worker in the fast-food industry, said during a news conference following the event. "Some nights you want to lay down cry because you [feel] like 'what's the point of going to work and putting all of myself into a job, [if] I'm going to be miserable when I get off work, miserable when I go home...and don't want to wake up and go to work the next day...to get disrespected, treated poorly and paid poorly.'"
Hall, who's been active in the push for fairer wages in the fast-food industry, is the worker who is often forced to embark on the three-hour treks to work. Hall said that his boss will sometimes said him home as a penalty for his tardiness--without considering the ridiculous journey he has to travel just to get to there.
"Working hard, and working as hard as you can, isn't paying off for them," mayoral hopeful and former City Comptroller Bill Thompson, said during the news conference. "They're being underemployed, They're being underpaid. They're being taken advantage of. They're being ignored. They're becoming a permanent underclass in the city of New York."
The UnitedNY and CPD report lays out four specific initiatives that workers and advocates must pressure the city to implement in order to help better the plight of low-wage workers. The reports calls on the city and employers to :
[Raise] standards for low-wage workers. [Regulate] high-violation industries where labor abuses are rampant. [Establish] a Mayor's Office of Labor Standards to ensure that employment laws are enforced. [Urge] the State to allow NYC to set a minimum wage higher than the State minimum--due to the higher cost of living in the City.The report pays close attention to the need for City Council to pass the paid sick-leave bill, and increase the minimum wage in the city to $10/hour--a salary that would net a worker with regular hours about $20,000/year in earnings.
"We can't continue to be a Tale of Two Cities, where the path to the middle class keeps fading for thousands of New Yorkers," said New York City Public Advocate Bill de Blasio. "We must break the logjam and pass paid sick leave in the City Council. We have to protect low-wage workers fighting union busting employers. We can't tolerate inaction any longer. It's time for real action to fight for working families."
During one of the symposium workshops, a panel of labor experts discussed the obstacles facing low-wage workers in their fight to obtain such rights.
"[We've] shifted from a General Motors economy to a Wal-Mart economy," Dorian Warren, a professor of public affairs at Columbia University, said during the discussion. "[The job market is filled with] part-time jobs, low wages, no benefits, no social contract, no ability to move up in the job the way 20th century workers were able to."
Warren says that the quality of jobs in the American economy will only decline if something isn't done. He noted that 24 percent of jobs were low-wage in 2009. By 2020, that number is expected to nearly double and hit 40 percent. To make matters worse, technological "advances" are expected to increase unemployment rates by 3-5 percent moving forward.
"We're looking at an economy only of low-wage work in the future, but also of high and permanent levels of unemployment," Warren said.
The panel was moderated by acclaimed labor reporter, Steven Greenhouse of the N.Y. Times and included Angelo Falcon, president of the National Institute for Latino Policy, Deborah Axt, co-executive director of Make the Road New York, M. Patricia Smith, the solicitor of labor for U.S. Department of Labor and Ana Avendano of the AFL-CIO.
Several panelists stressed the need to combat attacks from right-minded forces seeking to erode worker wage and benefit rights. Falcon says that those fighting for worker rights must correct popular narratives, many of which categorize wage and benefit increases for workers as business-killers.
"When we talk about the minimum wage, the immediate response from business is, we're going to lose jobs because, we're only going to be able to hire a few people. We have to have an answer to that objection," Falcon said. "Through raising the minimum wage, you create job growth in terms of people being able to put more money into the economy. You're [putting] less pressure on social welfare systems...the system is still subsidizing business [when the public provides] welfare and other social services."
Warren* argued a similar point.
"I think we have to be much more explicit about targeting the right the way that they've targeted us. There's a reason why the right has gone after public sector unionism," Warren* said. "They know that's where the heart of the labor movement is in terms of funding and in terms of membership. We have to get smarter about which parts of the right do we target to destroy ideologically, organizationally so that we can advance further our movements. "
Source
Under scrutiny, New York Fed sets short list for Dudley successor
“Community and labor activists led by the Fed Up coalition demonstrate and call for the selection of a Federal Reserve...
“Community and labor activists led by the Fed Up coalition demonstrate and call for the selection of a Federal Reserve Bank of New York president independent from Wall Street, outside the Fed bank in New York, March 12, 2018.”
Read the full article here.
Thousands Today Say #WeRise To Reclaim Government For The People
Campaign for America's Future - March 11, 2015, by Isaiah J. Poole - At the office of Illinois Gov. Bruce Rauner, more...
Campaign for America's Future - March 11, 2015, by Isaiah J. Poole - At the office of Illinois Gov. Bruce Rauner, more than 2,500 demonstrators, most wearing white “We Rise” T-shirts, staged a protest against cuts in Medicaid and other social services. In Albany, N.Y., more than 2,000 people marched to the state capitol to protest education funding cuts. In Denver, dozens of activists came out in support of immigration rights measures, including driver’s licenses for undocumented workers.
These are just a few of the dozens of actions that took place in 16 states today as part of “We Rise: National Day of Action to Put People and Planet First.” Local and national progressive organizations mobilized around different aspects of a common agenda that stood in opposition to the right-wing and corporatist policies pushed through state legislatures in these states. The actions were all broadcast under the Twitter hashtag “#WeRise.”
“What we saw today was a stirring of the democratic spirit,” said Fred Azcarate, Executive Director of USAction. “People are upset at elected officials who spend more time working for big corporations and wealthy campaign donors than representing the people they were elected to serve. Today, people rose up to reclaim government and demand that legislators work for them and their families.”
The states where We Rise demonstrations were organized also include Arizona, Georgia, Idaho, Kansas, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Jersey, Nevada, New Hampshire, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. The events were led by groups affiliated with National People’s Action, Center for Popular Democracy, USAction, and other allies.
“Apparently conservatives believe they have a mandate to give big corporations another free ride on the backs of everyday people,” said George Goehl, Executive Director of National People’s Action. “But they’re wrong. They have no such mandate. Instead, as we can see in the resistance to draconian policy or Chuy Garcia’s campaign to unseat Rahm Emanuel as Mayor of Chicago, there is a new brand of populism taking root in America. People are fed up with politicians doing the bidding of big money. They’re ready for leaders who will work for, not against, people and the planet.”
“Politicians working primarily on behalf of big corporations are making it harder and harder for families to get by,” said Ana María Archila, Co-Executive Director of The Center for Popular Democracy. “Our families won’t stand for this, and today thousands of workers and families raised our voices in state houses across the country to demand that elected officials join us in leveling the playing field so that each and every family can thrive.”
The Campaign for America’s Future is working with two of the organizations behind today’s “We Rise” events, National People’s Action and USAction, in sponsoring the “Populism2015″ conference in April, with the Alliance for a Just Society. One goal of that conference is to build political momentum from today’s events around a populist progressive agenda “for people and the planet.” Register for the April 18-20 conference in Washington through the Populism2015 website.
Protest Matters: Senate Asks F.B.I. to Investigate Kavanaugh After Flake Is Confronted by Sexual Assault Survivors
Protest Matters: Senate Asks F.B.I. to Investigate Kavanaugh After Flake Is Confronted by Sexual Assault Survivors
The Senate Judiciary Committee abruptly halted the effort to confirm Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court on Friday,...
The Senate Judiciary Committee abruptly halted the effort to confirm Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court on Friday, agreeing to a request from Sen. Jeff Flake, an Arizona Republican, to delay a final vote for one week, to give the FBI time to investigate three allegations of sexual assault and harassment against the judge.
Read the full article here.
Advocacy Groups Call for Closer Scrutiny of Charter Schools
Trib Total Media - October 1, 2014, by Megan Harris - Three groups with union affiliations on Wednesday pointed to the...
Trib Total Media - October 1, 2014, by Megan Harris - Three groups with union affiliations on Wednesday pointed to the criminal case against ousted PA Cyber Charter School founder Nick Trombetta as an example why the state's nearly 180 charter schools need better oversight and stronger accountability.
The Center for Popular Democracy, Integrity in Education, and Action United of Philadelphia and Pittsburgh issued a report that alleges Pennsylvania charter schools defrauded taxpayers out of more than $30 million. That figure is an aggregate of cases brought by whistleblowers and media exposés, according to the authors.
Pennsylvania Coalition of Public Charter Schools executive director Robert Fayfich said in a prepared statement that “the report draws sweeping conclusions about the entire charter sector based on only 11 cited incidents in the course of almost 20 years, while ignoring numerous alleged and actual fraud and fiscal mismanagement in (traditional) districts over that same time period.”
Trombetta, who investigators allege illegally funneled $1 million from school coffers and deferred taxes on an additional $8 million in personal income, pleaded not guilty to 11 counts of mail fraud, bribery, tax conspiracy and filing false tax returns last year. Hearings are ongoing.
Fayfich said, “Fraud and fiscal mismanagement are wrong and cannot be tolerated, but to highlight them in one sector and ignore them in another indicates a motivation to target one type of public school for a political agenda.”
The groups' report urges state officials to temporarily suspend the approval process for new charter schools, investigate existing ones, and shift from standard audits to forensic audits.
School districts paid more than $853 million in tax dollars to charters serving 128,712 students in 2013-14. Almost 4,000 Pittsburgh students attended 33 charter schools the same year.
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