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Sound Familiar? Time for school finance reform.

Original post made by Susan Smith, Woodside: other, on Mar 22, 2014

San Carlos schools Superintendent Craig Baker and Chief Operations Officer Robert Porter apparently failed to "comprehend" that a $1.3 million home mortgage loan for Baker shouldn't have been made until the school board approved it in open session the next day, an independent audit found. What's more, according to the audit, Porter neglected to tell the school board before it approved the loan that district funds had already been transferred the day before. And, according to the audit, Porter at one point wrote a personal, $36,000 check to cover the house sale deposit for Baker, who is his boss. The report was commissioned last year by the school board in the wake of public criticism of how the loan was handled. It was posted on the district's website on Feb. 28, along with a letter from school board President Adam Rak, who said that funding the loan in advance of the meeting was merely an error. "This mistake does not manifest any intent to engage in wrongdoing, Nothing illegal, nefarious or improper was done," Baker told The Daily News on Thursday. "Mistakes were made. We're moving on to do the real work of the district."

Comments (4)

Posted by POGO
a resident of Woodside: other
on Mar 22, 2014 at 7:51 am

Our government, local, state or federal, clearly holds itself to far different standards than they hold its citizenry.

Try missing a required permit or filing and see how much slack these officials will afford you. But they do something that is quite literally a felony, and they excuse it.

There is no accountability.

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Posted by Menlo Voter
a resident of Menlo Park: other
on Mar 22, 2014 at 8:41 am
Menlo Voter is a registered user.

Why should they hold themselves to the same standards? They know we have a DA that will not prosecute them for any of these shenanigans.

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Posted by Grand jury
a resident of Menlo Park: The Willows
on Mar 23, 2014 at 7:30 am

We don't know if a grand jury has been involved or not.

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Posted by Menlo Voter
a resident of Menlo Park: other
on Mar 23, 2014 at 9:40 am
Menlo Voter is a registered user.

Grand Jury:

that would our DA to involve one. Can you think of the last time our DA has done so in such a case?

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Sound Familiar? Time for school finance reform.

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