A for-profit management firm is charging a publicly funded Brooklyn charter school nearly $4 million above market rate for its current 5-year lease, a state audit found.
The Michigan-based National Heritage Academies — whose questionable leasing practices were first exposed by The Post in April — has been using an affiliate to charge Brooklyn Excelsior Charter School a whopping $2.6 million in yearly rent for its Bushwick digs.
An audit by state Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli shows that the school’s board of trustees had independently appraised the site’s rental value at $1.8 million — but agreed to the higher rent anyway.
They were apparently swayed by an NHA lawyer’s argument that the company wouldn’t get an appropriate return on its investment — including $13 million in renovations to the building — at the lower rate, auditors found.
The building lacks an auditorium, gym and cafeteria, forcing kids to eat lunch in their classrooms.
DiNapoli also rapped the firm for refusing to fully divulge how it spent the $10 million in public funds it received annually to operate the charter school.
NHA claimed portions of its financial formula contain proprietary information.
“Any entity that runs on taxpayer dollars has to be open and accountable to its community and the taxpayers who foot the bill,” DiNapoli said in a statement. “Excelsior’s board needs to improve its financial diligence and NHA needs to be transparent about how public money is being spent.”
In a response, Brooklyn Excelsior board of directors President Corey Martin disputed the findings that the rental deal was not in the best interest of the school.
Martin emphasized how much the firm’s initial financial investments help the school.
NHA, which operates two other schools in Brooklyn, is one of the few for-profit management firms operating charters in New York.
Its operation preceded a change to state law in 2010 that bars for-profits from running charter schools, which are publicly-funded.
The Post reported in April that at another site managed by NHA — the Brooklyn Dreams Charter School in Kensington — rent was jacked up by as much as 1,000 percent, according to a source.