According to a new DGS FOIA production, of 12 former DCPS school buildings for which DC charges rent to 10 charter leaseholders, only half of those leaseholders have paid rent owed between 2021 and 2024.

In addition, DGS has granted charter leases for $0 rent for the rest of former DCPS buildings leased to charter schools (19 of 31) in exchange for modernization and renovation credits that the new FOIA production shows the agency has no records of, including what work was completed for those credits on the publicly owned buildings and what costs were incurred for it.

The FOIA production also shows that DGS has not kept accurate records for rent payments overall and has no records of sublet proceeds, a portion of which some leases specify must be paid to DC.

The fiscal implications of this lack of oversight, especially with DC’s current tight budget, are enormous. Last year alone, DC’s charter schools received more than $160 million in per pupil facilities funds from DC (about $3500 per pupil). Charter schools get that money whether they pay their rent or not and regardless of need—and can use it for anything. Literally no one in DC government tracks any of this money. By also not tracking rent credits or even rent payments by charters leasing DC-owned buildings, DC leaders enable fiscal waste and private enrichment, at the direct expense of the public.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, DGS is not alone in such abysmal record keeping of former DCPS assets owned and leased by DC to private charter entities. Months ago, a FOIA request for records and receipts for rent payments between 2009 and 2014 of just one former DCPS school owned by DC and leased to a charter LEA got no responsive documents from DCPS; the mayor’s office; DMPED; the CFO; and DGS. When I wrote to the mayor, her chief of staff, and the council chair about this lack of records, I got no explanation (and barely any response).

Bottom line: DC leaders appear to be purposefully providing millions of square feet in publicly owned former DCPS school buildings entirely free to private charter entities.

Data Sources (Or How We Got Here)

After the failure to get any documents in response to one simple FOIA request (for rent receipts for 2009-2014 for Slowe, leased to Mary McLeod Bethune charter school), I requested from the CFO and DGS the following for the more recent time period of 2021 to 2024:

1. records and receipts of all payments of rent for every former DCPS school building leased by DC charter schools;
2. records and receipts of all rent credits and facility modernizations for all charter schools paying $0 rent at the former DCPS school buildings they lease; and
3. records and receipts of any proceeds due DC from the subletting of former DCPS school buildings leased by DC charter schools and sublet by those same charter school leaseholders.

On March 19, 2024, I received in response to my FOIA request three things:

1. For the rent payments, a PDF file called “charter school payment”;
2. For the rent credits, a PDF file called “rent credit”; and
3. For proceeds due DC of charter sublets, a statement that there were no responsive records for records and receipts for sublet proceeds.

A few other documents also inform this fiscal issue:

–For 2024 council oversight, in response to council question 58, DGS provided a spreadsheet of publicly owned assets that it has leased for $0. That spreadsheet, showing former DCPS schools leased for $0 in exchange for rent credits, is here.

–Because there is no publicly available document that shows all former DCPS schools leased to charter LEAs and whether they are required to pay rent, I used a variety of sources to create a spreadsheet that shows a total of 31 former DCPS schools currently being leased to charter LEAs and their rent status. That spreadsheet of 31 former DCPS schools leased to charters (and the data sources that inform it) is here.

Missing Rents

The document “charter school payment” in the FOIA production shows what five charter LEAs paid from 2021 to 2024 for renting the six former DCPS school buildings they lease from DC:

CG Woodson (Friendship at 4095 Minnesota Ave NE)
Old Brightwood (Friendship at 1351 Nicholson Street NW)
Paul (Paul at 5901 9th NW)
Slowe (Bethune at 1404 Jackson NE)
Bruce (Meridian at 770 Kenyon NW)
Weatherless (SEED at 4301 C SE)

That leaves an additional six former DCPS buildings owned by DC and leased to charter LEAs that technically should be paying rent and–per this FOIA production—did not from 2021 to 2024:

Evans (Maya Angelou, 5600 East Capitol NE)
PR Harris (Ingenuity Prep, 4600 Livingston SE)
Douglass (KIPP DC, 2600 Douglass Rd SE)
Montgomery (KIPP DC Shaw, 421 P NW)
Wilkinson (DC Prep, 2330 Pomeroy Rd. SE)
Petworth (Briya, 801 Shepherd St. NW)

The 19 remaining former DCPS school buildings owned by DC and leased to charters are, per DGS’s response to council oversight question 58, provided to those charters for free in exchange for rent credits for renovations and modernizations:

Draper (Achievement Prep, 908 Wahler SE)
Mamie D. Lee (Bridges, Briya, 100 Gallatin St. NE)
Rabaut (Capital City, 100 Peabody NW)
Terrell (CC Prep, 3301 Wheeler Rd. SE)
Keene (DC Bilingual, 33 Riggs Rd. NE)
Benning (DC Prep, 100 41st NE)
Shadd (DC Scholars, 5601 East Capitol SE)
Clark (EL Haynes, 4501 Kansas NW)
McGogney (Eagle, 3400 Wheeler Rd. SE)
Shaed (Inspired, 200 Douglas St. NE)
Hamilton (KIPP DC College Prep, 1405 Brentwood Parkway NE)
Webb (KIPP DC Webb, 1375 Mount Olivet Rd. NE)
Harrison (Meridian, 2120 13th St. NW)
Gibbs (Monument, 500 19th St. NE)
Cook (Mundo Verde, 30 P St. NW)
Taft (Perry Street Prep, 1800 Perry St. NE)
Young (Two Rivers, 820 26th St. NE)
Rudolph (Washington Latin, 5200 2nd St. NW
Ferebee-Hope (KIPP DC, 3999 8th St. SE)

While the lists above account for the 31 former DCPS schools owned by DC and leased to charters, they are potentially inaccurate because DGS data is contradictory in multiple places:

1. In response to council question 58 for 2024 oversight, DGS provided a list of former DCPS buildings it was charging charter LEAs $0 rent in exchange for renovation and modernization credits. (That is the list immediately above.)

But on the FOIA production of charter payments of rent (“charter school payment”), DGS lists some of those charter LEAs as having not paid rent between 2021 and 2024, even though the council response document DGS says those LEAs have been granted $0 rent in exchange for modernization credits:

Capital City, for Rabaut
CC Prep, for Terrell
Eagle, for McGogney
Inspired, for Shaed
DC Bilingual, for Keene
KIPP DC, for Ferebee-Hope
Monument, for Gibbs
Mundo Verde, for Cook (possibly wrong address in the FOIA production)
Perry Street Prep, for Taft
Two Rivers, for Young

(Confusingly, the FOIA production also lists KIPP DC not paying rent for the former Bundy School at 429 P NW–which is unclear if KIPP DC is even occupying.)

So: are these charter LEAs supposed to pay rent—or not? And if they are supposed to pay rent, where is it?

2. While Ingenuity Prep is listed on the FOIA production (“charter school payment”) as not paying rent for the last 3 years, there is a little note about the school and its facility (PR Harris) that says “no data/payment history for this lease. Currently being abstracted.”

Ingenuity Prep has only one location—the former DCPS school PR Harris—and the charter school’s most recent fiscal audit says it paid >$2 million in rent in 2022 and also in 2021.

So: what is that $2+ million annual rent on Ingenuity Prep’s fiscal audit if not rent for PR Harris, which the DGS FOIA production says the school has not paid? And if Ingenuity Prep has in fact paid DC that money, why doesn’t DGS have a record of it, even if the lease is currently being “abstracted”?

3. Per the FOIA production of rent payments (“charter school payment”), KIPP DC has two locations where it is leasing DC-owned school buildings and is not paying rent: Douglass (KIPP DC, 2600 Douglass Rd SE) and Montgomery (KIPP DC Shaw, 421 P NW). (There is also (possibly) a third location: the former Bundy school at 429 O NW.) Yet KIPP DC has other former DCPS schools it rents for $0 in exchange for rent credits: Hamilton (1405 Brentwood Parkway NE); Webb (1375 Mount Olivet Rd. NE); and Ferebee-Hope (3999 8th St. SE).

Similarly, Briya has a location that it is granted $0 rent for in exchange for rent credits (former Mamie D. Lee) alongside a location that DGS says it owes rent for (former Petworth).

So: are these charters LEAs subsuming payments for the facilities they owe rent for with the other former DCPS facilities they rent from DC but do NOT pay for in exchange for modernization credits, as outlined on the DGS response to council question 58?

4. DC Prep not only got a sweetheart deal for Wilkinson (quite outside the law governing disposition of closed DCPS facilities) but also got DC revenue bonds to cover extensive renovations there. Yet it is noted on the FOIA production (“charter school payment”) as having made no rent payments for Wilkinson.

So: does DC Prep owe rent for Wilkinson or is it presumed to be given rent credits?

Missing Credits

The FOIA production for rent credits (“rent credit”) is perhaps most notable for being utterly unusable—and inaccurate.

1. Presuming DGS’s response to council oversight question 58 is correct, then this “rent credit” PDF document is missing two schools that presumably pay $0 rent in exchange for modernization credits: Terrell (3301 Wheeler Rd. SE; CC Prep) and Clark (4501 Kansas Ave NW; EL Haynes).

It is unclear whether we can presume from their absence on this FOIA document that these LEAs are supposed to pay rent for those buildings. Regardless, they do not appear on the other FOIA production document (“charter school payment”) as having any payments due.

2. The “rent credit” FOIA document purports to present rent credits for a variety of leased former DCPS school buildings without explaining what the numbers are for or when they were incurred. Other than the school name at the top of each table (which in some is in such a tiny font that it is almost impossible to read), there is no way to distinguish anything of the numbers given. Literally, they are just numbers.

3. More specifically, on this FOIA production (“rent credit”) there is

–no record of renovations or modernizations done for those credits;
–no timeline for expiration of those credits; and
–no way to track if anything was actually done for those credits.

These are not small expenses for short periods:

We are talking about tens of millions in renovations and rent credits leading to zero-ed out rents for decades without any comprehensible record whatsoever.

Though such credits are done in the name of DC taxpayers, allowing improvements to publicly owned facilities, the lack of any records whatsoever ensures that any benefits cannot accrue to taxpayers except by happenstance.

Incompetence—Or Fraud?

Keeping track of 31 buildings is not rocket science. Even a technologically challenged person can figure out how to keep a spreadsheet and adapt it over the course of a decade or two.

Yet this is not what an entire DC agency in charge of DC-owned buildings has for the 31 former DCPS buildings that DC charters lease from DC. Even presuming DGS does have a spreadsheet or database with this information, it is not making it publicly available.

Consider that in response to my FOIA request for records and receipts of payments of charter leases and charter credits for those leases from 2021 to 2024, DGS produced two PDF tables, one for rent payments (“charter school payment”) and one for rent credits (“rent credit”).

Yet these PDFs are actually not responsive to my FOIA request inasmuch as they are not themselves “records and receipts”! Rather, these two PDF tables were created on March 18, 2024, the day before they were sent to me, from numbers kept somewhere. Literally, the records and receipts I requested are elsewhere—hidden from public view.

As a result of this and the data discrepancies noted above, I appealed the FOIA request on March 19, to which I have received no response as of this posting.

To be sure, DGS is not alone in horrific stewardship of payment records around these 31 former DCPS schools leased to charters. The CFO had no records for either of my FOIA requests around records and receipts of payment (for 2009-2014 for one school and for 2021-2023 for all). How is that even possible, given the CFO’s role in DC’s money?

The sheer number of possibilities for this state of affairs is astounding.

For instance, with just these 3 years’ worth of data, one can surmise that someone or some agency of DC may be

–not cashing rent checks and/or
–passing off nonpayment of rent as payment and/or
–passing off payment of rent as nonpayment.

And that’s not even counting what individual charter LEAs may be doing (i.e. how is a charter LEA accounting for “rent” if it makes no payment for years running when rent is owed?).

As it is, what numbers exist for payments on the FOIA production on payments (“charter school payment”) make little sense. This document shows SEED paid $13,000 in 2021, $10,000 in 2022; and $17,000 in 2023, while Bethune paid $328,882 in 2021; $296,076 in 2022; and $358,831 in 2023.

Why the wild differences? And why such small amounts for SEED’s building, the former Weatherless, which has tens of thousands of square feet?

Similarly, this document showed that Paul—in a much larger building than Bethune—paid $63,136 in 2021; $73,659 in 2022; and $52,613 in 2023. The leases I have seen for former DCPS school buildings leased to charters often have both competitive rates as well as clauses escalating rents over time. Yet most of these payments not only are well below standard rates but actually did not increase over time.

While it could be that there was some rent credit given to Paul or SEED for their buildings, and thus accounting for their (oddly) low rents, there is literally no accounting of that anywhere in this production—though there ought to be if it happened.

So: Incompetence or fraud—or both?

Depriving The Public For Private Profit—By Design

Ahead of all DCPS closures was a simple, and appealing, concept: saving public money.

But the lack of proper accounting for rent payments and credits on dozens of former DCPS schools means that DC is literally giving away millions of square feet of publicly owned space—space that few DC citizens wanted closed to the public–for free to private entities.

Perhaps the best example of such spectacular private gain at public expense is the fact that DGS has no records and receipts of any proceeds due DC for the last 3 years from the subletting of former DCPS school buildings leased by DC charter schools.

Consider just one charter leaseholder: Perry Street Prep.  

In its lease for the entirety of Taft (dated May 13, 2010 for a term of 25 years), Perry Street Prep is supposed to pay DC $1.15 million a year, at a rate of $5.72 per square foot for 201,000 square feet. The lease allows the charter LEA to sublet as much as 30% of the building (about 60,000 square feet) to other entities related to education, as long as 50% of what it realizes by doing so is sent to DC. That lease also gives a $21 million credit for renovations in the first 15 years.

Now, here is what that FOIA production “rent credit” shows for credits for Perry Street Prep at Taft from 2021-2024:

Remember: This is a record of rent credits for 3 YEARS. What was done in those years? And when?

Yeah, this is nonsense.

Because Taft is so huge, Perry Street Prep has been subletting space there for years—and DGS apparently has no records of any of it, despite the fact that the lease says the LEA has to give DC 50% of its sublet proceeds.

Yet what we know of recent subletting at Taft shows millions owed to DC taxpayers remaining in private hands because DGS doesn’t care:

–In an undated lease (but likely May 1, 2013), Perry Street Prep rented out 22,500 square feet of Taft to CSII, a private charter school incubator. This lease goes until 2034 and is for $5.72 per square foot, or $128,700 a year. It also gives a credit for $4 million for renovations. I calculated that Perry Street Prep could have been taking in $128,700 annually through this sublet, half of which ($64,350) should have gone to DC—except we now know that DGS doesn’t care and DC probably received nothing.

–In a lease dated May 1, 2013, CSII sublet 22,500 square feet of its leased space at Taft to LAMB, which left the building this school year. That lease specified $29 per square foot, or $652,500 a year, apparently with utilities included. So, CSII appeared to be taking in $523,800 annually ($652,500 – $128,700) from its sublet to LAMB, charging a rate about five times what CSII leased the space for.

As a result, CSII’s profit at Taft was entirely borne by DC taxpayers: first, through charter facilities fees paid by DC to LAMB and then turned around to CSII, and second, through proceeds of LAMB’s rent, since it’s not through Perry Street Prep and thus not 50% shared with DC. (To be sure, even if Perry Street Prep sublet that same space directly to LAMB (and not CSII) and adopted the same terms ($29 per square foot), DC would theoretically realize $326,250 annually from the sublet—except that DGS doesn’t care and DC probably received nothing.)

–In a lease dated June 17, 2016, LAMB sublet a 9960 square foot portion of Taft from Perry Street Prep until 2028, for $29 per square foot, or $288,840 a year, apparently with utilities included. Perry Street Prep appeared to be taking in $288,840 annually through this sublet, half of which ($144,420) should have gone to DC—but probably didn’t because DGS doesn’t care.

–In a lease dated January 28, 2020, LAMB sublet 10,000 square feet of its leased portion of Taft to Sojourner until June 2021. The lease is for $30 per square foot, or $300,000, with at least 70 students enrolled. LAMB appeared to be taking in $300,000 annually on this lease. DC likely got none of that, because the lease is not through Perry Street Prep.

–In a lease that is not publicly available, St. Jerome, a parochial high school, was subletting 6,000 square feet from Perry Street Prep for terms publicly unknown. Despite being a lease held by a publicly funded entity, for space in a publicly owned building, the lease between Perry Street Prep and St. Jerome is not publicly available. Years ago, when I asked DGS about this and the proceeds from that subletting, these are the responses I got: here and here and here.

Yeah, this is nonsense.

In its FY20 budget, Perry Street Prep noted paying $291,593 in rent. Since its only facility is Taft, it’s unclear what that figure involved–but as noted above, it could be accounting for renovation credits, as provided by the original 2010 lease for Taft. Perry Street Prep’s FY20 budget also noted that the school took in $1.19 million in DC charter facilities payments. Since the $1.19 million in DC charter facilities payments Perry Street Prep received was technically more than it needed to fulfill payment of the entirety of its lease for Taft, that suggests that the school was profiting by more than $200,000 annually through its subletting—assuming it was paying DC 50% of its sublet proceeds.

But what is the likelihood that this charter (or frankly any charter LEA) was paying DC its share of sublet proceeds, given that DGS has no records of ANY sublet proceeds in the last 3 years–despite the agency’s contractual agreement to collect the portion due DC?

The bottom line is that with the knowledge and assent of the mayor and DGS (and possibly the council chair as well), millions of square feet of former DCPS school buildings are fiscally benefitting private charter entities at the direct expense of the public through DC agencies not keeping records of rent payments, rent credits, and sublet proceeds. 

Remember that the next time these “leaders” talk about budget cuts and closing schools.