Brighter Choice Foundation

“NY charter school official admits embezzling $203K.” Associated Press, 3/27/2013

ALBANY (AP) --The former chief financial officer of a foundation that funds charter schools in Albany has admitted embezzling almost $203,000 from the organization.

Albany County District Attorney P. David Soares says 49-year-old Ronald Racela pleaded guilty Tuesday to second-degree grand larceny for stealing the money while working for the Brighter Choice Foundation from September 2011 until December.

He's expected to be sentenced May 17 to from five to 10 years in state prison and ordered to pay back the money. Brighter Choice officials said they weren't aware Racela was on probation for stealing almost $54,000 from KeyBank, where he was a manager, when he was hired in June 2010.

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“Charter school theft alleged.” Times Union (Albany, NY), 1/26/2013

ALBANY — The former chief financial officer for the Brighter Choice Foundation, which provides funding and support to 10 public charter schools in Albany, has been charged with embezzling $202,837 from the organization.

The arrest Wednesday of Ronald A. Racela marks the second time in four years that Racela has been charged with grand larceny. Two years ago, Racela admitted stealing $53,931 from KeyBank in Albany, where he was employed as a manager in the Community Development Lending Group, court records show.

M. Christian Bender, executive director of Brighter Choice Foundation, said Brighter Choice officials were not aware of Racela's criminal history when he was hired as financial director of Brighter Choice Charter Schools in June 2010. Bender said Racela described his separation from KeyBank as "tense" but did not disclose he had been arrested for embezzlement eight months before he was hired by Brighter Choice...

Still, a state Education Department spokesman said the agency sent written notice of Racela's criminal history to the charter school last March, when it denied the school's request to clear Racela for employment. The spokesman said the agency had first flagged an employment clearance request for Racela that was submitted by Brighter Choice in December 2011. By that time, Racela had already been working for Brighter Choice schools for about 18 months...

Bender said he never received the Education Department's letter last March denying Racela's employment clearance. He suggested Racela may have intercepted the documents, which are not in his personnel file...

He's charged with felony counts of falsifying business records and grand larceny. Racela, paid $120,000 a year as CFO, is accused of making false payroll entries at the Brighter Choice Foundation that enabled him to get extra payroll checks over a roughly 15-month period starting September 2011, the complaint says...

In a Times Union interview two years ago, Racela described the "tremendous fiscal pressure" the charter schools were enduring due to what he said was the Albany school district's failure to pay millions of dollars in mandated tuition reimbursement fees. The district is mandated to pay the charter schools more than $14,000 for each city student enrolled in a charter school.

Racela, then director of finance for the Brighter Choice Charter Schools, wrote an email to employees stating: "no 'funny business' has occurred with the school's cash" as he explained why the school had been unable to pay employee retirement benefits. The schools' financial woes came to light after an earlier, unrelated state audit indicated Brighter Choice ended the 2009-10 school year $453,745 in the red, which was worse than the previous year, when its expenses exceeded its income by $311,638...