A Brooklyn public school was run into the ground by an ex-principal who left more it than a $100,000 in debt by wrongfully inflating payroll, misusing funds and using a fake bidding process for purchase orders, the schools investigator said today.
In his report, Special Investigator for Schools Richard Condon, says Maria Penaherrera mismanaged funds at PS 114 in Canarsie before being reassigned in 2009 by the Education Department – not for money troubles, but after she was late for work and had no alternate leadership in place to evacuate the school after a carbon monoxide alarm went off.
Penaherrera severely bloated the school’s budget, in part by hiring four assistant principals but then had to let three of them go because the school was running a massive deficit. The fourth later quit. She also wrongfully hired extra secretaries and non-certified teachers, along with consultants who repeated work already being done at the school, the investigation found.
After her replacement raised questions about an after-school program called Friends United Block Association that Penaherrera had allowed to use space at the school, the replacement was offered “a duffel bag filled with counterfeit handbags” by the program’s president, the report says.
The school’s custodian, Joseph Meehan, also says in the report that the program’s president, Gardy Brazela, twice attempted to give him envelopes stuffed with $250 in cash “right around Christmas” but he declined.
Condon recommended that the DOE fire Penaherrera and has passed on his findings to the Brooklyn DA’s office.