Yes people will always be there trying to steal money from private schools, just like they steal from government schools in this case.

But at least when you have private schools people won't be forced to give their money to the school thieves in the form of taxes.

Source

Northwest Phoenix school group accused of funds' misuse

by Jeffrey Javier - Jan. 9, 2011 08:14 PM

The Arizona Republic

An Arizona Attorney General's Office investigation of a northwest Phoenix school group levels accusations of misuse of more than $400,000 of public money on travel, dining and golf tournaments over the past five years.

Valley Schools Management Group also is involved in conflicts of interest and violations of the state's lobbying ban, according to a search-warrant affidavit released to the public.

Several Valley Schools employees, including its chief executive, serve on school boards or work with districts that have contracts with the group.

"VSMG has operated with minimal oversight by the districts, so VSMG board members and employees have been able to do whatever they wanted without having to account for their actions," according to the attorney general's affidavit. "They have not had to justify their spending habits or account for the over $400,000 spent on golf tournaments and other questionable items."

Valley Schools attorney Jean-Jacques Cabou said in a statement, "We are aware of the allegations made in the search-warrant affidavit. That affidavit is only one side of the story, and many of the allegations in the affidavit are demonstrably false."

The Peoria, Paradise Valley and Deer Valley unified school districts founded Valley Schools as a non-profit governmental entity to manage certain functions, such as insurance trusts, employee benefits and construction management. It serves more than 20 districts statewide.

Valley Schools representatives have said previously they save school districts millions of dollars by jointly allowing them to purchase insurance and pool insurance risks. They said they invest money in marketing the organization to help them grow larger, thereby reducing school districts' costs.

Tina McMillion, a financial investigative auditor for the Attorney General's Office, wrote in the affidavit that school boards apparently don't realize that they may be liable for Valley Schools' actions. The organization is a public body that is handling public funds, the affidavit says.

Sandi Hicks, spokeswoman for the Deer Valley district, said district officials likely will seek legal advice about the attorney general's claim about district liability.

Valley Schools "claims to have saved the school districts millions of dollars, (but) it has simultaneously, and frequently, misused/gifted public monies," according to the affidavit. It says more than $400,000 was charged on Valley Schools credit cards from 2005 to 2010, including:

- $14,000 for an annual dinner at JW Marriott Desert Ridge Resort and Spa for board members, employees and others.

- $46,780 for Diamondbacks tickets.

- $57,878 on golf resorts and memberships.

- $104,500 to buy skyboxes at the 2009 and 2010 Phoenix Open for school districts' board members and employees.

The affidavit details more than 3,000 credit-card charges, including $150 at the Sunglass Hut in Laughlin, Nev., $2,500 for Starbucks gift cards and $4,422 for a meal at Villa Florence hotel in San Francisco.

The Attorney General's Office also called it "imprudent and wasteful" for an organization that cannot sell its services to the public to spend $50,000 on advertising, including $30,000 for an eight-page insert in The Arizona Republic.

Numerous instances of conflicts of interest are also threaded throughout Valley Schools, according to the search warrant released Friday.

"Many VSMG employees have jobs at other districts, sometimes positions that seem to be in conflict or duplicative of their duties," the affidavit says.

Three Valley Schools board members, including Chief Executive Tom Boone, Bill Maas and Ted Carpenter, were on the Deer Valley school board when they voted on contracts and payments to Valley Schools. Disclosure statements about conflicts of interest were not filed until fall 2009, the affidavit says.

Boone, a former Arizona legislator, also sponsored legislation that exempted school districts from competitive bidding for purchasing certain insurance services, and Maas was among the people who benefited from that, the affidavit says. Boone is still on the Deer Valley school board; Carpenter left in 2007 and Maas in December.

Boone did not return calls for comment, Maas declined to comment and Carpenter could not be reached.

Other conflicts of interest were found with Valley Schools employees who also worked for other school districts, the affidavit says.

Joel Wirth, chief financial officer for the Chandler Unified School District, was hired part time in July 2007 to market Valley Schools pools to school districts in the East Valley. In August 2007, Chandler approved purchasing health insurance through Valley Schools, according to documents.

Wirth declined to comment, directing questions about the attorney general's investigation to Valley Schools' attorneys.

Deer Valley school-board member Christy Agosta said she is concerned about the "great amounts of money spent on things that school districts can't."

"There's a lot of spending there, and that's very disheartening in times of budget crunch," Agosta said.