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Fool us once — get a bigger contract.
A tutoring firm that was asked to pay the city back nearly $1 million for dubious charges uncovered months ago in a scathing audit is set to get a new sweetheart deal with the city, The Post has learned.
Not only is the city Department of Education overlooking Champion Learning Center’s questionable billing — which took place under a two-year, $40 million contract — it is offering the firm $1million more per month in work, online documents show.
The contracts committee of the Panel for Educational Policy is scheduled to vote Monday on the one-year, $28 million deal for the public-school tutoring firm.
That’s at least three times the amount of any other tutoring contract on the table.
“Our audit uncovered highly questionable bills that this company charged to the city, which were then paid by the DOE even with its anemic oversight of the company’s work,” said Comptroller John Liu, whose office released the audit in May. “The DOE shouldn’t pay them another penny of taxpayer money until the DOE can demonstrate it has corrected these serious problems.”
Liu’s office found that between 2009 and 2011, Champion was paid $836,000 for services it sometimes claimed occurred in the wee hours, even after midnight and before 5 a.m. It also billed for tutoring during school hours even though the contract specified that work could be done only before or after school and on weekends.
“The billing for these hours could signal fraud,” the audit said.
The DOE had said it would try to recoup the charges. A firm spokesman said they have been paid back.
“While we disagreed with some of the comptroller’s audit findings, the DOE has been fully reimbursed for the questioned items, which represented less than 3 percent of the services we provided, and we have strengthened our internal controls to ensure that all services are properly documented,” the spokesman said.
He declined to provide details on the pending contract because it has yet to be approved.
“[We] are confident that we will continue to help meet the needs of New York’s children,” he added.
DOE officials did not respond to questions about the deal, including how much the firm would earn per tutoring hour. They also couldn’t provide a written description of the proposed contract even though the contracts committee meeting is just days away.
Under a former tutoring contract, the company billed the city roughly $80 per hour for individual student tutoring.