Plunderbund

The Toledo Blade is reporting that:

The director of a now-closed West Toledo charter school and her husband owe the state nearly $120,000 for unaccounted taxpayer money, according to a special audit released yesterday by the Ohio Auditor’s Office.

Kari DiCianni was fired in January as executive director of the Performing Arts School of Metropolitan Toledo (PASMT), and the state auditor’s office was asked to investigate financial management by her and her husband, Bill DiCianni.

The audit conducted by Mary Taylor’s office was for the time period of July, 2006 through February, 2007.

Plunderbund researchers have discovered that the DiCiannis filed for chapter 13 bankruptcy on July 19, 2006- while she was still director of the school!

The DiCiannis’ bankruptcy case was dismissed on November 14th of that same year. Which leaves me wondering: where did they get the money to pay their creditors?

It sounds to me like Kari and Bill DiCianni were having some serious financial problems at home- and they decided the best solution was to steal from their tax payer-funded charter school.

Not surprisingly, it turned out to be much too easy.

Not only did Kari and William DiCianni pay themselves an extra $53,037 that they didn’t deserve, they also used students to help rip off the school for another $48,250.

According to the auditor’s report, “payments were made directly to certain students allegedly for work they performed for William DiCianni on behalf of PASMT. During interviews, students stated that they cashed the checks and returned the cash to Mr. DiCianni. The students received a portion of the returned cash as payment for his or her services.”

This is just one more example of the problems with Ohio’s charter school system- a system that drains vital resources away from our public schools and allows dishonest school owners to steal money from Ohio’s tax payers.