Saturday, August 3, 2013

New Test Results Are Disastrous For The DOE

UFT's Mike Mulgrew slams Bloomberg's test policy about 9 years too late, and gives the DOE just cause to fire teachers.

Betsy

State test scores expected to drop dramatically from tougher reading and math exams

State Education Commissioner John King warned principals that the results could be disastrous, and suggested they use the scores 'judiciously' when making firing decisions. Teachers union president Michael Mulgrew rips Mayor Bloomberg's approach on education, saying it 'was always a numbers game' to him.

Comments (4)

By Ben Chapman AND Corinne Lestch / NEW YORK DAILY NEWS

Friday, August 2, 2013, 11:15 PM

State test scores — used in decisions to promote students, award bonuses to principals and fire teachers — are expected to take a steep decline this year as a result of tougher exams. United Federation of Teachers President Michael Mulgrew slammed Mayor Bloomberg's education legacy: 'He never understood that real learning means more than endless test prep.'

State education officials will drop a bomb on thousands of city kids and parents Wednesday when they release scores from the controversial and tougher reading and math exams.
State Education Commissioner John King sounded the alarm for disastrous results with a letter sent to principals Friday afternoon.
“Scores are expected to be significantly lower than the 2011-’12 scores,” he wrote, adding that principals should use the scores “judiciously” when making decisions about whether to fire teachers.
RELATED: PARENTS WANT PRINCIPAL FIRED IN QUEENS
The state test scores are used in decisions to promote students, award bonuses to principals and fire teachers. This year, for the first time, the tests were tied to national standards known as Common Core.
City and state Education officials have predicted for months that scores would fall by about one-third on the tougher tests — in part because city schools have not yet received a curriculum aligned to the new standards.

But city Education Department sources said Friday that the drop could be even worse than expected.
RELATED: HELPING THOSE WHO REMAIN IN DOOMED SCHOOL
“People are freaking out at Tweed,” said the agency official, who asked to remain anonymous. “They’re trying to find a way to spin the scores so it doesn’t look so bad.”
The teachers union released a report Friday predicting just how steep the drop would be.
According to the report, the percentage of elementary school students who meet standards will decrease by 19 points in reading and by 28 points in math. The middle-school grades will drop 14 points in reading and 22 points in math.
RELATED: CRITICS ARGUE WITH NYC CHARTER SCHOOLS' SUCCESS
The results are expected to be significantly worse for black and Latino students.
New York is one of several states that rolled out new, more rigorous math and reading tests this year for grades three to eight to better prepare kids for college and careers. About 450,000 students in the city took the exams in April.
“Tests have gotten tougher and scores will reflect that,” said Lauren Passalacqua, a spokeswoman for Mayor Bloomberg. “But this is a transition that absolutely must take place.”
But teachers union president Michael Mulgrew ripped the looming, gloomy results as more evidence of Bloomberg’s failed education legacy.
“Education was always a numbers game to Mayor Bloomberg, but the numbers are turning against him,” said Mulgrew. “He never understood that real learning means more than endless test prep, and kids and schools are paying the price for his failed policies.”
clestch@nydailynews.com

Christine Quinn Hands Out Lulus To Political Allies

A lulu of an idea

City Council Speaker Christine Quinn doles out the moolah one more time

Comments (3)

NEW YORK DAILY NEWS

SATURDAY, AUGUST 3, 2013, 4:00 AM

Christine Quinn uses your tax money to reward her political allies.

For a final time in eight years as City Council speaker, would-be mayor Christine Quinn has just handed favored members the biannual cash payments called lulus. Here is one more argument for imposing an inspector general on the municipal legislature.
Although members are very well paid — $112,500 a year for part-time work — Quinn has rewarded loyalists with additional stipends and has punished those who displeased her by withholding extra pay.
The Council has moved to put the NYPD under the oversight of an inspector general who would have the power to review all of a commissioner’s policies. Backers say this IG will help ensure that all monies are fairly and properly spent.
Think about the good such an IG would do on the Council, where, in addition to lulus, the speaker doles out almost $400 million annually in so-called member items, enabling her pets to fund local causes and denying similar aid to residents of districts represented by the speaker’s foes.

Of course, the Council recoils from the suggestion. The level of hypocrisy is stunning.
Four years ago, Citizens Union asked Council candidates whether or not they would support abolishing lulus.
Twenty-three of the presently sitting members pledged to be rid of the payments and are still blessed by Quinn with taking one.
Five of those now accept the money: Sara Gonzalez and Diana Reyna of Brooklyn, Helen Foster of the Bronx, Margaret Chin of Manhattan and Danny Dromm of Queens.
Fifteen members take lulus, but claim they donate the money to charity. They are: Gale Brewer and Rosie Mendez of Manhattan; Fernando Cabrera of the Bronx; Debi Rose of Staten Island; and Mathieu Eugene, David Greenfield, Letitia James, Steve Levin and Darlene Mealy, all of Brooklyn. From Queens there are Julissa Ferreras, Peter Koo, Karen Koslowitz, Eric Ulrich, Jimmy Van Bramer and Ruben Wills.
Only three members who opposed lulus lived up to their word by refusing payments: Daniel Garodnick and Ydanis Rodriguez of Manhattan and Brooklyn’s Brad Lander. Good for them.

Christine Quinn passes out lulus to Council members who don't have the guts to reject corruption

Friday, January 21, 2011, 4:00 AM

Mayor Michael Bloomberg and City Council Speaker Christine Quin are greeted by City Council members.

This is the day when the City Council feasts on lulus. Members who stand securely in the good graces of Speaker Christine Quinn will get the first of two installments of the annual bonuses by which she rewards loyalty.
The Council justifies awarding the stipends - on top of the legally set salary of $112,500 - by depicting them as added compensation for committee work. Virtually everyone gets some such task, along with yearly payouts that range from $4,000 to $28,500. Most typical is a $10,000 boost.
Members of Congress, no matter how senior or how hefty their committee loads, get no added compensation. And for a very good reason. Legislators who are beholden to their leaders for big chunks of money will be far more likely to do as they are told rather than buck the bosses.

Quinn, who gets the biggest lulu, is foursquare behind the system. Others recognize its corrosive influence.
Before the 2009 election, the good-government group Citizens Union surveyed Council candidates. One inquiry read: "What is your position on eliminating or limiting stipends for committee chairs and leadership positions?"
Most of those who were elected backed dropping or reducing lulus. Some have lived up to their word. Daniel Garodnick of Manhattan, Ydanis Rodriguez of Manhattan and Brad Lander of Brooklyn are refusing the money. Good going.
Thirteen say they'll donate their lulus to charity: Gale Brewer and Rosie Mendez of Manhattan; Mathieu Eugene, David Greenfield, Letitia James, Steven Levin and Darlene Mealy of Brooklyn; Karen Koslowitz, Eric Ulrich, Jimmy Van Bramer and Ruben Wills of Queens; Debi Rose of Staten Island, and James Vacca of the Bronx.
Then there are the hypocrites who said they opposed lulus but are taking the money: Fernando Cabrera and Helen Foster of the Bronx; Margaret Chin of Manhattan; Daniel Dromm and Julissa Ferreras of Queens; Sara Gonzalez and Diana Reyna of Brooklyn.
For the record, Foster insists she never filled out a questionnaire expressing opposition to lulus. Strange. Someone signed the name "Helen Diane Foster" to such a document. You can look it up on the Citizens Union website. Foster should check it out herself.

Friday, August 2, 2013

UFT to NYC Educator: Support Bill Thompson For Mayor...or Else

If you are a UFT member, you have no choices.

Betsy

From NYC Educator:

Friday, August 02, 2013

In Which I Am Courted by the UFT

For the past few days I've been getting phone calls and emails from union reps. Apparently it is essential that I get my butt over to UFT HQ and make phone calls for Bill Thompson. They'll give me Chinese food and a Bill Thompson t-shirt.

This is probably because when Tony Avella and Grace Meng ran, I not only showed up, but also dragged a bunch of people with me. I was very excited about supporting both of them, and I was happy when both of them won. With Thompson, it was a matter of looking at all the possibilities and deeming him the only one who was remotely viable, particularly with Wiener looming, and his victory likely to enable yet another Republican mayor.

But now, with Carlos Danger hanging in Wiener's shadows (and no, that was not a pun), Bill de Blasio is resurgent. I'd always preferred de Blasio to Thompson, particularly since he didn't tell the Daily News he opposed teachers getting the pattern raise virtually all other city employees got in the last round of bargaining. Thompson did say that, unfortunately.

To further muddy the waters, this week de Blasio, having been abandoned by the UFT, his erstwhile supporter, is making noises about how he, not having our endorsement, can better negotiate with us. You might say he is a fair-weather friend, as was Thompson. Or you might say the UFT was premature in offering its endorsement. But Thompson has also flip-flopped on stop and frisk, so you might see a lot of support he'd otherwise have received going to de Blasio.

I declined to work for Thompson. The UFT rep told me if I didn't show, I'd have no right to complain about the consequences. Apparently, he felt that statement would persuade me whatever happens in the next mayoral election would be entirely in my hands. It did not. He then started to tell me how intelligent I am, and how I therefore must understand this.

He continued to tell me that this selection was the most democratic process ever. It's true Thompson was popular in every borough but Queens, which had the good sense to support John Liu, my first choice. But it's also true UFT leadership, in the form of the Executive Board, made a recommendation to the DA. It's further true that virtually everyone in the DA signed a loyalty oath to agree with whatever they're told to agree with.

If that's democracy, then most teachers support mayoral control, value-added methods, being itinerant ATRs, school closures, and getting fired based on test scores likely to be as flawed as previous test scores.

He asked me if I thought the UFT would endorse a candidate who opposed getting teachers the raise all other city employees got. Given the UFT's previous positions, I was at a loss to answer. This is the same guy who got in front of my staff and promised that the union was very smart, and that the evaluation system would come with the contract and raise for which they'd been waiting years.

In a real democracy, people say whatever they like, and vote freely without facing the (gasp!) possibility of being shut out from future AFT and NYSUT conventions at fancy hotels. It may be good if Thompson is elected, depending on which Thompson takes the oath. I would probably go and make calls for him if de Blasio were not resurgent. But right now I'm not all that enthused. And if the UFT wants reasons, they need only look at the 82% of teachers who don't bother to vote in union elections.

I vote every chance I get. But I do understand cynicism, and I don't like veiled threats, shallow flattery, empty promises, or being bullied or browbeaten to do things for which I have limited enthusiasm. This is particularly true about people who've sorely disappointed me in the past.

PS 29 Principal is In Trouble

Teachers and parents call for removal of College Point principal at PS 29

State Sen. Tony Avella and staffers rallied to urge the city to replace Principal Jennifer Jones-Rogers. Opponents claim the principal harasses and humiliates teachers.

Comments (2)

BY CLARE TRAPASSO / NEW YORK DAILY NEWS

THURSDAY, AUGUST 1, 2013, 2:42 PM

LINK

Parent Marisol Chavez and her son Lukas Chavez, 9, call for the removal of Principal Jennifer Jones-Rogers from Public School 29 in College Point. Staff and teachers said that she bullies them.

Angry teachers and parents are demanding the city fire a College Point principal they claim harasses and humiliates staffers.

About two dozen people — including teachers and state Sen. Tony Avella (D-Bayside) — rallied outside Public School 29 Thursday to complain that Principal Jennifer Jones-Rogers is so abusive that 25 of 45 teachers have left or been forced out since she took the helm in 2010.

“She is very abusive to staff and students,” said a teacher who declined to give her name due to fear of retribution. “She scolds you in front of people and publicly humiliates you.”

The teacher said staffers who get on the principal’s bad side are subject to increased classroom observations and are often written up for minor violations.

And struggling students are wrongly placed in special education classes, teachers said. The goal is to boost the school’s coffers — and test scores.

Parent Marisol Chavez, 42, of College Point, said Jones—Rogers told her that her son was going to be placed in a class for struggling students last year — but the fourth-grader was instead enrolled in special ed.

RELATED: BLACK PUPILS FAR LIKELIER TO BE SUSPENDED

State Sen. Tony Avella (D-Bayside) joined the parents and teachers in calling for the principal’s firing.

“I was very upset,” she said. “I felt betrayed.”

Jones-Rogers and the Department of Education did not immediately comment.

The school received a B grade on its last city report card. But PS 29 received a C mark from parents, teachers and students on the environment of the school.

Teachers also complained that PS 29’s library was turned into a drama room — and many classes are using outdated curriculums and don’t have textbooks.

“We find old textbooks are make a million photocopies,” said one staffer, who asked not to be named for fear of retribution. “Children are not reading and writing on grade level.”

Second-grade teacher Stephanie Flunory gave her principal a failing grade:

“She has created a learning and working environment that is detrimental to all,” said Flunory. “We deserve better leadership.”

ctrapasso@nydailynews.com

Anthony Weiner's Barbara Morgan - From the DOE to Eva Moscowitz To Anthony, Quite a Job History

Anthony Weiner and Barbara Morgan

NYC Supervisor: Barbara Morgan is getting what she deserves

Ednotes

LINK

I said "Ms. Morgan you work for the DOE what the hell are you doing here defending [Moskwitz]?! She steals money from our public schools by opening non-unionized charter schools which profit off our kids." ... NYC Principal

This just in from a school principal in response to our Weiner press chief Barbara
Morgan post (Unflappable Weiner Press Spokesperson Barbara Morgan Flaps)

I was happy to see her get her comeuppance. She is an arrogant, mouthpiece for the neo-liberal deformers (and perverts) she represents.

She got upset that they say she had a thin resume? She never did anything of substance but talk the party line whatever the marching orders – Klein, Cerf, Weiner...

I met her at a rally against Moskowitz.

I asked Moskowitz:

"How do you justify paying yourself half a million dollars a year to run 3 schools when I am a principal and don't make that and when my sup't has dozens of schools and only makes 170,000?"

Eva just made a bored annoyed face and then Barbara Morgan who was observing everything runs over, jumps in and says "I will answer that!! She does not take a pension like you and the sup't so it is just another way of looking at compensation."

I asked her "Why are you answering for her? Who are you?"

She says "I am Barbara Morgan. I work for the DOE Press Office."

That really pissed me off as I was there as part of a Community Rally AGAINST the unwanted $ucce$$ Charter vultures.

I said "Ms. Morgan you work for the DOE what the hell are you doing here defending her?! She steals money from our public schools by opening non unionized charter schools which profit off our kids."

Look at this crowd-

FROM THIS COMMUNITY, not the twenty folks bussed in from harlem by Eva Moskowitz -

THEY DONT WANT THE SCHOOL.HERE IN THIS DISTRICT.

The parents are against it, the unions are against it and most importantly the CEC is against it.

I asked Ms Moskowitz a question and you jump to her defense.

Why would you do that as a n employee of the DOE? Are you here as an apologist for $UCCE$$ ? If so it shows a serious bias in favor of Charter schools over Public Schools which we have been alleging all along. You should be speaking up for me as a NYC PUBLIC SCHOOL principal not this corporate raider/privateer.

Ms Moskowitz walked off during this exchange as she knew full well the City was merely holding the Mandated Community hearing and that the City's decision was predetermined...

When she was gone Ms Morgan changed faces and says "well I understand that you are a union Rep and I respect that. I am from New Jersey and have a brother who is in a union"...

Two-faced foul-mouthed hypocrite. I don't wish ill on people. Life is too short. But when her brother can't get work or medical benefits he can thank soul-less empty-vessel spokespeople like his sister.

Posted by Norm @ ed notes online at 3:04 PM

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Labels: Anthony Weiner, Barbara Morgan, Eva Moskowitz

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ed notes onlineAugust 1, 2013 at 8:23:00 PM EDT

I had a VERY bizarre encounter with Barbara Morgan the day before the Carlos Danger story broke.

Anthony Weiner was loitering at our local subway station exit. I live around the corner, I thought I'd take a look. There was Anthony hanging outside of the main Carroll Street subway entrance as neighborhood folks were coming home at rush hour. It was not my intention to engage him but merely to observe. Thus, I planted myself on the corner about twenty feet away to watch.

There was essentially no interest in his presence by the folks leaving the subway during (an admittedly unbearably hot) late afternoon.

I was trying to be as unobtrusive as possible (I swear), when I was tapped on the shoulder by Barbara Morgan who called me by name - based on her recognizing me from her days with the NYC DoE. After briefly explaining she was working for Weiner, she immediately changed the subject and engaged in a spirited defense of the DoE and Chris Christie (as well as, naturally, an attack on Leonie) with no further mention of her current employer who (like I said) was just twenty feet away. I responded that in my personal experience with the DoE, I had little confidence in the Mayor's ever acting in good faith citing Bloomberg's "blowing up" of the original Teacher Evaluation agreement between Tweed and the UFT.

Morgan denied that, contrary to Ernie Logan and Commissioner King, there ever had been a 'deal'. Although she acknowledged that she herself had neither participated in nor was present at the negotiations, she cited as authority an unidentified person who had "actually been in the room" - unlike Logan or King. She then immediately told me this was "off the record" - even as I pointed out to her that this was Walcott's public version of what had transpired. She than threatened that she would "get" me if I ever disclosed this inexplicably confidential information.

At this point, I was desperately trying to exit the discussion (so help me) to no avail. In fact, she would not end the conversation until another Weiner staffer informed her that the candidate was leaving.

All in all, this was one of the strangest encounters I have ever had with a paid political staffer (in close proximity to the candidate no less). Indeed, the only thing close that I can think of was when former DC 37 Political Action Director Norm Adler lost his subsequent job with Shelly Silver after he tried to punch out a newspaper reporter several decades ago. In Norm's defense, though, the bastard had it coming.

Just thought I could add to the gossip.

Weiner paid for phony supporters at campaign events, source says

Tuesday, July 30, 2013

Weiner Leaves The Race For Mayor - 2009

Congressman Anthony Weiner officially drops out of race for mayor - 2009 (how about a repeat?)

BY CELESTE KATZ , KERRY BURKE AND ADAM LISBERG / DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITERS

TUESDAY, MAY 26, 2009, 10:37 PM

LINK

Rep. Anthony Weiner told supporters he is dropping his mayoral campaign and plans to make a formal announcement Wednesday morning.

Weiner plans to announce his decision in front of his childhood home in Park Slope, Brooklyn.

In an op-ed published in Wednesday's New York Times, Weiner said he could not compete against Mayor Bloomberg's millions while staying focused on issues.

"I've taken stock of my life, my work in Washington and decided that now is not the right time to run," Weiner wrote. "I believe I have a contribution to make in Congress fighting for New Yorkers. (I'd also like to build a family.)"

RELATED: LISBERG: WEINER'S CATCHUP HOPES DIM ON MAYOR RACE

His decision follows the Queens Democratic organization's refusal to back him at its meeting Tuesday, sources said.

The county party voted unanimously to back city Controller William Thompson for mayor - as the other four county Democratic organizations have done.

Weiner (D-Brooklyn/Queens) said in March he was suspending his campaign to focus on his work in Washington and would make a final decision by the end of this month.

He told allies and advisers over the weekend he would make up his mind within days, even as he was marching in Memorial Day parades.

RELATED: RANGEL BACKS THOMPSON IN MAYOR'S RACE

"I have nothing to say," Weiner told the Daily News at his Forest Hills home last night. "I have nothing to say to you guys."

One source said the head of the Queens Democrats, Rep. Joe Crowley, "had a heart-to-heart" with Weiner on Monday and said he could be mayor someday - but not this year.

Sen. Chuck Schumer refused last night to comment about his protégé's decision.

"You have to talk to Anthony," he said.

RELATED: WEINER SAYS HE'D BE BETTER THAN MIKE - BUT HINTS HE WON'T RUN

Thompson has picked up endorsements and support in the past two months, making it easier to gather the 7,500 signatures needed to get on the ballot.

"He knew that we had deadlines," said one Queens Democrat. "County needs to coordinate the citywide with the countywide with the local petitions. He was very understanding."

The political newspaper City Hall reported on its Web site Tuesday that Weiner had finally decided to pull the plug, with a formal announcement planned for Wednesday morning.

Weiner's campaign would not confirm or deny the report and d"Anthony has said he is making up his mind. The campaign will announce a decision when Anthony is ready to," said campaign spokeswoman Marie Ternes.

RELATED: IT'S MIKE BY DEFAULT, FEDUP N.Y.ERS GRIPE

The Queens party also backed Queens Councilmen John Liu for controller and Eric Gioia for public advocate.

Bloomberg's campaign team has been gearing up for a fight against Weiner, drawing up plans to bury him in negative ads while unflattering stories about the congressman appeared in New York newspapers.

A primary battle between Weiner and Thompson could have left the winner bruised and battered, while also forcing them to spend money on beating each other instead of the mayor.

Weiner addressed that possibility in his op-ed column.

RELATED: REV. AL ASKS: ARE YA RUNNIN' OR NOT, WEINER?

"Running in the primary against [Thompson] in September would only drain the ability of the winner to compete in the general election."

He also offered some praise for Bloomberg.

"The mayor has tried to be innovative in some areas, and he has avoided the divisive racial politics that can cripple our city. So I will continue to work with Mayor Bloomberg whenever I can, and disagree forcefully when I believe his policies leave the middle class and working class behind."

The Thompson and Bloomberg campaigns would not comment on Weiner's decision.

alisberg@nydailynews.com

Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/news/congressman-anthony-weiner-officially-drops-race-mayor-article-1.377939#ixzz2aaWG04jK

Sunday, July 28, 2013

Wayne Barrett on Bill Thompson's Skeletons in the Closet and Other Not-Answered Questions

I'm not voting for Bill Thompson.

Wayne Barrett, formerly a public favorite at Village Voice magazine, has it right. You may want to know why Thompson's Campaign Worker Hank Sheinkopf took the 5th Amendment on the stand at the court hearing on the Racino Scandal. I certainly do.

Betsy Combier

Bill Thompson

WNYC News

Strange Ties in Bill Thompson's Brooklyn Backyard

Thursday, July 25, 2013

By Wayne Barrett

LINK

In late June, Al Sharpton and four citywide candidates—Bill DeBlasio, John Liu, Scott Stringer and Letitia James—led a demonstration in Bill Thompson’s home territory, the Bed Stuy section of Brooklyn, where he lived all his life until 2004. They were protesting the mismanagement of Interfaith Medical Center, the last remaining hospital serving the neighborhood. Interfaith had filed for bankruptcy months earlier and was still run by managers from the company, Kurron Shares of America, that had led the death march.

Had Thompson come, he would have been protesting against his own one-time business associates. In 2010 and 2011, as the hospital plunged toward bankruptcy, Thompson was serving as a paid member of the advisory board of a Kurron sister company, working intimately with the owner – a man named Corbett Price who’d been his friend since the 1990s and whose family, employees and firm have donated nearly $20,000 to Thompson campaigns, starting with his first race in 2001.

During that time, Kurron and Price have cut a trail of financial and medical mismanagement, run-ins with regulators and public controversies – not least repeated clashes with healthcare unions – up and down the Eastern Seaboard.

So Thompson’s paid ties to Kurron – during a period when he was planning a second run for the mayor’s office after his near-victory over Michael Bloomberg in 2009 – raise important questions about his attentiveness to detail, his judgment and his choice of associates.

Asked by WNYC on Thursday about his involvement with Price, Thompson said he had “nothing to do with Kurron, nothing to do with their business, nothing to do with their company, period.” He said that he served about six months on an advisory board for Price as he attempted to start up a private equity fund. As for the fate of Interfaith Medical Center, Thompson said he has been part of the fight to keep the hospital open. “I firmly believe that Interfaith needs to stay open, period,” he said. “It is important to that neighborhood.”

Price, right, would not directly answer questions about his arrangement with Thompson, but his explanation paralleled Thompson’s. “His work for Kurron Capital was to guide us on shifting to become a private equity firm. He wasn’t involved in the operations of the company on health care, consulting or restructuring,” Price said. A Kurron intimate explained that Price’s general counsel, Pam Bradshaw, worked directly with Thompson, who functioned “more as a consultant,” advising Kurron on the “pursuit of private equity opportunities.” All the Kurron companies had a single shareholder, Price, and shared an office on Third Avenue.

As comptroller, Thompson was Wall Street’s conduit to the city’s $130 billion in pension funds, which the comptroller serves as investment advisor, custodian and trustee. And his principal employer after he left office has been a public finance firm, Siebert Brandford & Shank, which paid him $680,000 last year. But he joined Kurron when it was a sinking ship.

Just how much Thompson has been paid by Kurron isn’t clear. The disclosure form he filed with the state as chair of the Battery Park City Authority says he was a paid member of the advisory board of Kurron Shares, a sister company to Kurron Capital, Interfaith’s management company, in 2010 and 2011. The state form doesn’t list his earnings, stating only that Kurron was a source of income over $1,000. Another disclosure form, which mayoral candidates filed with the city last week, contained no reference to Kurron, indicating Thompson’s advisory service ended in 2011.

The extent of the relationship would be more apparent if Thompson joined his fellow Democratic candidates for mayor by fulfilling a pledge to make public his tax returns. Early this year, he released his 2012 tax returns, but he has refused to release his 2010 and 2011 filings, which would list his Kurron earnings. He is the only Democratic candidate for mayor who’s only released a single year’s return, even while Scott Stringer is making repeated demands that fellow comptroller candidate Eliot Spitzer make five years’ returns public.

In 2012, Thompson appeared on NY1 and host Errol Louis, pointing out that all his opponents had already released their returns for years, asked why he was the only one who hadn’t. A smiling Thompson replied that he would “probably release all four years of them next year, in a campaign year,” rather than “deal with things one at a time.” Over a week of daily calls to Thompson's headquarters, press officer John Collins repeatedly promised them, at one point even describing how they could be viewed at the campaign office. In the end, the campaign never supplied them.

Ties to Kurron are hardly something the average office-seeker would brag about.

WNYC asked an intern new to New York to do a Google search of Kurron to see how quickly she hit negatives. It took a minute. In three minutes, she read an abstract that “criticized Kurron for reducing medical care” at Interfaith and “later earning a surplus of $8.6 million.”

Within 12 minutes, she reached the first Google result about Price’s anti-labor record – a story that led to a deluge going back to 1985, when he started in the healthcare management business with the Hospital Corporation of America, a national fixture in the field. His layoffs in Maryland of 650 workers at the Prince George’s Hospital Center, the county hospital, sparked the union animosity that rails him to this day. In 1989, he left HCA and won a personal contract to run the huge, publicly-owned and privately-managed Maryland facility, but was fired within months, collecting three years of full CEO pay. That’s when he created Kurron, incorporating it in Maryland in 1990.

He tried twice to return to Prince George’s—seeking to buy it in 2003 , and failing that seeking a big consulting contract then and again in 2007 and igniting controversy each time. When county officials withheld millions in subsidies in 2003 that were due the hospital unless they hired Price, the hospital management went to the state attorney general, who conducted a six-month probe of the politicians’ demands before concluding there was no crime. In 2007, when county officials repeated the same public demand for a Price contract in exchange for releasing committed millions of county aid, The Washington Post wondered why Price met such vocal opposition and answered its own question: “Why? Because he has several decades of history tangling with the hospital workers.” A top Maryland union leader, Quincey Gamble, branded him a “slash and burn” villain; the county executive said to favor Price is now in jail, convicted on unrelated corruption charges.

Price’s company and his son donated $9,900 to Thompson’s mayoral campaign in 2007, at the same moment that the Washington-Baltimore press corps covering his Prince George’s County machinations was reporting that Price had “left 1,200 pink slips in his wake,” “enraged union members,” and “hurt” patient care.

The union hostility continues to this day. Just a few months ago, New York’s hospital workers union, Local 1199, joined the New York State Nursing Association in briefs filed in the Interfaith bankruptcy case objecting to Kurron’s latest contract there and charging that Price was a shadow manager consuming grand fees without even visiting hospitals where he was listed as CEO. At the time, Thompson was aggressively seeking 1199’s mayoral endorsement, which he ultimately did not get. But he has received the backing of many city unions, including the United Federation of Teachers.

But the shadow over Kurron hardly ends there. The New York State Department of Health cancelled Kurron’s contract with Interfaith, pictured left, in April, after sending four blistering letters to the company, including charges that bonuses paid to Kurron executives were “contrary to law” and contending that “the reasonableness” of Kurron’s overall fees could not be determined. At the time of Interfaith’s bankruptcy filing, its liabilities exceeded its assets by $200 million after nearly 20 years of Kurron management. The demise wasn’t just financial; a court-appointed patient care ombudsman found the hospital’s emergency department “more chaotic and disorganized” than others he’d observed, noting that “there did not appear to be a coherent process of triage and patient management.”

This week, the health department rejected a reorganization plan proposed by Interfaith’s current managers – a team of former Kurron executives stripped first of Price and then of a long-time Kurron executive, Luis Hernandez, who quit the day of the June protest, a departure that one protest organizer, Robert Cornegy, credited to “pressure from the community.” The state now has asked Interfaith to submit a plan for its closure – part of a dramatic consolidation of healthcare services in Brooklyn that has nearby Long Island Community Hospital almost emptied.

While the collapse of Interfaith culminated after Thompson left Kurron’s advisory board, but the road to bankruptcy – marked by gaping operational deficits – was being paved through his tenure. Also on his watch, in November 2010, Episcopal Health Services terminated the company’s two-decade-old contact to manage St. John’s Hospital in Far Rockaway, disturbed by Price’s efforts to close the obstetrics unit in a low-income neighborhood in a cost-cutting maneuver and also supported by state officials. Soon after, in February 2011, Kurron’s biggest contracts – $14.6 million in politically-wired deals in tiny Bermuda – were abruptly terminated by the government 18 months before they expired amid a flurry of public condemnations.

Price’s champion there, Premier Ewart Brown, awash in corruption allegations, had just stepped down, and the new leader of Brown’s PLP party decided to kill one of the most expansive deals arranged by her own party, an extraordinary event in Bermuda’s hyper-partisan politics.

Of course, none of this was Thompson’s business at Kurron. But the problems made his experience particularly relevant to Price, who explained that he was “shifting direction” to private equity because his other businesses were drying up. Kurron’s battles over Interfaith peaked as Thompson apparently was exiting the firm.

Indeed, the medical center’s bankruptcy papers read like an expose of Price and Kurron, as well as an autopsy of a gutted hospital. IMC filed on December 2, 2012 – three days after awarding a new $3.25 million contract to Kurron, some $250,000 of which was paid the day before the contract was signed. The contract, which had to be approved by the bankruptcy judge, called for Kurron to continue managing the hospital and become its “restructuring adviser” during the bankruptcy process, with Price as Chief Restructuring Officer and CEO. The rationale was that Kurron knew interfaith so well it was the only consultant that could salvage it, and the judge eventually approved the deal.

The U.S. Trustee that oversees bankruptcies, - joining 1199, the nurses union and the hospital’s creditors – filed objections to the Kurron deal. The independent trustee found that Kurron “could be an impediment to reorganization,” questioning its ability “to fulfill its fiduciary duty.” Price’s 35-years in the health care business, featuring restructuring experience, was one of the reasons Kurron won the court battle. He promised the judge in court and in writing that he would be a 40-hour-a-week CEO and restructuring chief.

But the briefs from the unions told another tale. The hospital workers union accused Price of a “shockingly cavalier attitude,” arguing that he had not been “present physically” though the first months of the bankruptcy period. The nurses cited the observations of their own members, who said Price hadn’t been there “a single day” and had no office or secretary at Interfaith, refusing to respond to requests for even a conversation. The hospital’s patient ombudsman said Price wouldn’t meet with him, and only talked to him once for five minutes.

Price responded in court to these allegations by listing a handful of phone inquiries he made about Interfaith, mostly to bankruptcy lawyers and consultants. Kurron also accused the objecting creditors of “prioritizing union interest.” In March, the judge singled out Price personally and dropped him from the contract, approving a new restructuring chief with no ties to Kurron to guide the bankruptcy.

Price’s remote management had been an issue for decades – at least since 1999, when Newsday reported that his claim he “spent very little time away from Interfaith” was “flatly contradicted by multiple sources.” Anthony Kovner, an NYU heath care professor, told Newsday then he’d never heard of a hospital story “stranger than this” – a hospital run by a missing person. Another key objection to Price was that he sat on the Interfaith board that awarded and administered Kurron’s contract for 10 years. The Newsday story was prompted by Price’s war with Interfaith workers; in it, Brian Lane, an 1199 leader, called Price “a hatchet man.”

Lane said: “That’s the style of Corbett Price. Everywhere he goes, he cuts to the bone.”

Polished, bejeweled and engaging, Price - a registered Republican who serves as a trustee of his alma mater, Ohio State University – works mostly out a Harlem townhouse on West 148^th Street he’s owned for years. He bought a $4.9 million condo in 2008 at 15 Central Park West, where Lloyd Blankfein of Goldman Sachs, Denzel Washington and Sting also had apartments and chauffeurs have a waiting room. Kurron sometimes used it for business purposes, but Price sold it in 2011, around the same time that Kurron closed its headquarters office at 885 Third Avenue, where Thompson and Price usually met at awkward two-member “board meetings.” The 800 number on Kurron’s neglected website is dead.

Perhaps Price’s most ambitious undertaking – and most ignominious fall during Thompson’s formal association with Kurron – was his detour to Bermuda.

Price won two of the small country’s biggest consulting contracts in 2007, shortly before “a friend” of his, as the island’s Royal Gazette newspaper described the new premier Ewart Brown, took office in 2006. Charges of cronyism had risen when Kurron beat out the much larger and more prestigious Johns Hopkins University for a plum assignment at the center of the nation’s healthcare system.

Officials in Bermuda attributed Price’s bonanza to the premier’s ex-New Yorker wife, Wanda Henton-Brown, a onetime New York investment banker whom Price had known for years; in the ’90s, they summered in nearby houses on Martha’s Vineyard. That’s also when Price steered a huge bond offering from Interfaith to the fledgling investment firm Henton-Brown had just founded herself. More recently, Price has given to Henton-Brown’s Bermuda foundation. Messages left for Henton-Brown in Bermuda were not returned.

Price was supposed to do three things in Bermuda: develop a national health plan, come up with a conceptual/financial model for a new hospital and propose a new insurance program for seniors called Futurecare. His health plan was never adopted, Futurecare has been turned upside down since he left and is running a $13 million annual deficit, and the new and financially troubled King Edward VII Memorial Hospital just shut down its continuing care unit for seniors this month as “not fit.”

An opposition party leader, Louise Jackson, called Price’s fees “absolutely obscene” on the floor of Parliament. Price’s 34-year old son Devin, a kick-boxing promoter, oversaw the Bermuda work for Kurron, sometimes conducting meetings about it at 15 Central Park West. Once Brown resigned in 2011, awash in scandal, his successor, though she was also a leader of Brown’s PLP party, cancelled Kurron’s contract – 18 months before it expired.

The worst of Kurron’s problems – in Bermuda, and at Interfaith and St. John’s – came home to roost during Thompson’s association with Kurron and Price. The issue for Thompson is not whether he aided or advised Price on labor relations, Bermuda or the management of the Brooklyn hospitals. The question is why he identified himself with a company with so much baggage.

Someone looking for patterns would point to past blots on Thompson’s record. Before he became comptroller, he worked in a small underwriting firm selling municipal bonds without the required license for years, and broke half a dozen securities rules. His firm signed him up for a six-hour licensing exam six times, forfeiting a $200 fee when he failed to show up each time. Finally passing the test in December 1995, he failed to meet continuing education requirements, forcing securities authorities to list him as “deficient and inactive” and temporarily suspend his license for two more years. Yet his 2001 campaign for comptroller emphasized his private sector expertise including the claim he’d sold billions in bonds, without mentioning he did it illegally. It was also revealed in that campaign that he’d filed his taxes late four of five years and had to repay by installment.

In 2008, while serving as comptroller, Thompson got a highly favorable mortgage and credit line from the union-owned Amalgamated Bank, which did billions of dollars of business with his office – an episode highlighted in commercials run by Mayor Bloomberg’s 2009 reelection campaign, in which he edged out Thompson. The $1.4 million loan to acquire Thompson’s Harlem home was artificially split in half by the bank to avoid federal ceilings and secure a lower interest rate. Amalgamated’s management of city retirement funds administered by Thompson’s office grew from $174 million when became comptroller to $3.6 billion, taking its greatest leap at the same time Thompson got the favorable mortgage and earning the bank $51 million in fees.

Thompson and state officials also deposited $50 million in city cash in Amalgamated, making it the biggest recipient of a special public deposit program; the number two bank in that program, North Fork, also gave Thompson a personal line of credit and loans. He also used the comptroller’s office to push high state and city officials to fund his wife-to-be’s new African-American art museum on Fifth Avenue, which was slated to open in 2009 but remains uncompleted.

All this is history. The substantive issue, in the midst of a tight mayoral primary, is why Thompson decided to enter and maintain a compensated business relationship with a man with Price’s history. Besides repeating over and over yesterday that he had “nothing to do with Kurron,” that’s not a question Thompson has answered.

Ben Shanahan and Tamara Smillie, a research assistant at the Nation Institute, contributed reporting.

After That 2009 Bloomberg Campaign Thing, Bill Thompson And Hank Sheinkopf Reunite

BY Celeste Katz, NY Daily News

LINK

Democratic mayoral hopeful Bill Thompson is apparently over Hank Sheinkopf's having helped Mayor Bloomberg win that third term -- the ex-comptroller has hired the veteran consultant as a senior strategist.
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Sheinkopf's sign-on with Team Bloomberg in the '09 race -- during which he pulled in $10,000 a month in consulting fees -- raised eyebrows because of his long relationship with Thompson.
"There was a time when he certainly was not happy with me, but there's a larger issue involved, and the larger issue is getting him to Gracie Mansion," Sheinkopf said of Thompson.
"I'm emotionally very moved that he would want me back and working with him, and I hope that I can help to make him the next mayor of the city of New York."
The Sheinkopf announcement came in a rollout of new members of Team Thompson -- including new Communications Director John Collins, a former staffer for Anthony Weiner. Policy Director Amber Green is joining the campaign from GMMB in Washington, a firm whose partners include former Weiner media guru Jim Margolis.
Thompson is also bringing on more Obama veterans, including Senior Advisor Karine Jean-Pierre, who's worked on both the campaign side -- helping run battleground state ops -- and in the White House. Another ex-Obama staffer, Will Leaverton, who ran GOTV ops, will serve as Thompson's field director.
More additions to the team, which already includes Jonanthan Prince and Bruce Gyory: Deputy Campaign Manager Frank Thomas, who managed Rep. Kathy Hochul's re-election bid last year, and Political Director Kim Ramos a strategist and lawyer with a network of contacts particularly among Latino electeds in the city and state Legislature.

Sheinkopf isn't the only well-known consultant who worked on Bloomberg's campaign despite long-standing ties to Thompson personally or the Democratic Party at large: Others included Howard Wolfson, an inner-circle Clinton aide for many years, who also went on to become deputy mayor.
No "betrayal" in his case, Sheinkopf said: He and Thompson had talked about the '09 contest, but simply hadn't been able to cut a deal.
Before that, he said, he hadn't worked for the ex-comptroller since 2001.
Despite being grossly outspent, Thompson ended up losing the race by only about four points.
The results, far from a blowout, spurred grumbling -- and regrets -- about how more money, big-name endorsements or ground troops might very well have kept Bloomberg from scoring another four years.

Controller's attorney bashes both sides while in court for divorce spat

By Kirsten Danis / DAILY NEWS CITY HALL BUREAU CHIEF

Thursday, May 1, 2008, 1:46 AM

Egan-Chin/News

City Controller William Thompson and second ex-wife, Sylvia Kinard-Thompson, are battling over a piece of furniture.

Controller William Thompson's divorce has turned into a nasty battle of name-calling and petty squabbles - and that's just from his lawyer.
Saul Edelstein, who represented the city's top moneyman in his split from his second wife, insulted Thompson's ex in an open courtroom Wednesday as "crazy as a loon."
"By the way," Edelstein said full voice to a lawyer sitting next to him in the crowded gallery of a Brooklyn divorce court, "my client's not too smart, either."

Thompson's 2005 split from Sylvia Kinard-Thompson was finalized a year later - but the couple is bickering over a piece of furniture that once belonged to the controller's grandmother, Edelstein complained.
His colleague agreed that Thompson - a likely candidate for mayor next year - wouldn't want his marital troubles ending up "in the Daily News."
The chatty lawyers were unaware they were sitting in front of a News reporter in the courtroom's benches while they waited for their hearings to start.
Most of the conversation could be heard by several people around them, and the reporter did not have to strain to listen.
Thompson, 54, was supposed to be at the hearing but skipped it to attend a housing forum.
So he missed his lawyer grousing that Kinard-Thompson "wants to be first lady" and her former divorce lawyer is "inexperienced" and "just as crazy as she is."
Kinard-Thompson, who is a lawyer, was sitting at the other end of the courtroom and did not hear the exchange.
She later threatened to take action against Edelstein for his words.
"I am shocked and disappointed by those comments. I have always regarded this as a private matter. I married Bill because I loved him and because he said he loved me," Kinard-Thompson said in a statement.
"As a Christian, I will continue to pray for Bill. As an attorney, I will see his lawyer in court."
A spokesman for Thompson declined to comment, calling it a private matter. Edelstein could not be reached to respond to Kinard-Thompson.
The self-described "dean" of Brooklyn divorce lawyers, Edelstein was more guarded about his opinions when he and Kinard-Thompson appeared before Judge Eric Prus.
Kinard-Thompson represented herself at the hearing.
Thompson claims his second wife took his grandmother's credenza from their former Brooklyn home.
It's not worth much, maybe "a dollar and a half," Edelstein said.
"It has great sentimental value," Edelstein told the judge. "She's taken that. She's not allowed to take that."
The couple were supposed to get together to divvy up their furniture, but that never happened, the lawyer said.
Kinard-Thompson insisted Thompson gave her the piece as a gift.
"All I want is what's fair," Kinard-Thompson said.
The couple married in 1999, and their divorce was settled in May 2006.
Kinard-Thompson complained that Thompson has locked her out of their former Bedford-Stuyvesant house and allowed his first wife, Angela, to move in.
The exasperated judge said the couple would have to share the cost of a $200-an-hour master to decide the credenza dustup unless they can work it out with a hearing officer.
kdanis@nydailynews.com