Aaron Bowman says, since Gary Chartrand could have made even more money it's okay that charter schools owe him millions.

The thing is nobody would care that the KIPP charter school owed him and Tom Baker over 11 million  dollars if they weren't trying to use the city council to export the school system out of 250 million dollars.

Aaron Bowman, reminds me of a rabid dog with a bone. He is all filled with rage and instinct and things like reason, facts and decency don't matter, and I think you will see this in a letter he sent to a constituent defending Gary Chartrand and ignoring the millions he is owed by the KIPP school basically saying, it's okay because he could have made even more.

 1) Mr Chartrand and Baker have donated well in excess of $2M to Kipp from their own pocket.

2) Kipp was unable to secure conventional financing so Mr Chartrand and Baker used an IRS tool called Program Related Investment (PRI) to loan Kipp $11M of their own money at a well-below market rate of 3%.  In the three years of time since that loan, the $11M would be worth $12M at the 3% and if left in the S&P 500, $18M.  Their generosity has potentially cost them $6M of gains—I’d hardly say there is any profit motive there.

3) Charter school students are public school students.  We cannot punish the 16,500 of them whose parents have sought alternate education from public schools.  There are things called “Clawbacks” if an organization does not perform, they return the funds they were given.  We do that for every Economic Development agreement the city makes to reduce risk on Tax payer dollars.  Certainly Clawbacks would be appropriate for the scenario you describe of Charter Schools closing or not performing.

I am not looking for a response.

WOW!!!

First Um, KIPP was unable to secure conventional funding? KIPP is a national chain with hundreds of millions of dollars in assets. The land the facilities sits on was donated to them as well. Is it they couldn't secure traditional funding, or they needed a place for rich investors to park their money? The KIPP school has also paid hundreds of thousands in interest, in the 2016 school year 319 thousand alone.

https://pdf.guidestar.org/PDF_Images/2017/264/046/2017-264046824-0ee20e3d-9.pdf?fbclid=IwAR3MyraaApRfVQdiSWhjjFclD-FUflz4xCCCizASIb5DVXS8P1sTyvNNOzU

 Who wants to bet that Baker and Chartrand got generous tax breaks for their loan? Aaron Bowman is either dumb or worse he thinks his constituents are dumb.

Then who is punishing charter school kids? First if anyone is punishing them, its their families who are CHOOSING to have their kids go to them, Nobody is required to go to a charter school. If I willingly walk on broken glass and get cut, is it the glasses fault?

Not only do charters get very healthy PECO funds from the state and public schools get barely any, but the district has already said and done so time and time again that charters will get a cut based on size and then even more money based on need. That's a punishment?  

As for clawbacks, its hard to clawback something when it's all gone. Great the district might recover some old lap tops and a box of pencils, but the truth is when money is spent at charters it is generally lost to the ether never to be seen again.  It's tax payers that are being punished by charters.

Bowman bemoans the fate of the city's 16 thousand charter school students while shrugging his shoulders at what happens to the 114 public school kids basically telling them to lump it or leave it because that is what he wants. He wants them to leave the public school system for charters, he wants public schools to fail and he couldn't care less that one of his biggest financial supporters will make millions off the deal. 

Welcome to politics in Jacksonville where doing what is right for the city and its people routinely gets trumped by politicians carrying water for their donors.