The sister of teachers-union president Michael Mulgrew is under investigation for failing to disclose she managed a company that raked in $39.6 million in public-school contracts while she was on an 11-year child-care leave from her city teaching job, The Post has learned.
Kathleen Mulgrew-Daretany, 40, was an English teacher at Lafayette HS in Brooklyn for less than five years with a $56,707 salary. She left in 2001 on maternity and child-care leave, but was allowed to remain on the Department of Education employment rolls.
She finally resigned in 2012, but the DOE rehired her this year as a $75,828-a-year “program officer.”
During her leave, Mulgrew-Daretany worked as chief operating officer for Brienza’s Academic Advantage, a Brooklyn-based company that sells teacher-training seminars and student tutoring. She is listed as COO in a Brienza’s organizational chart filed with the DOE. She left “last year,” a company official said.
DOE payments to Brienza’s rose from $5,109 in 2002 to $10.9 million in 2012, when the city received No Child Left Behind funds for after-school tutoring, officials said.
City employees are barred from holding second jobs with companies that do business with the city unless they get approval from their agency head and a waiver from the Conflict of Interest Board.
“She was required to request a conflict-of-interest clearance, but she did not seek one,’’ said DOE spokeswoman Connie Pankratz. She said Mulgrew-Daretany’s work for the vendor “was not disclosed to us.”
Pankratz said the DOE discovered the “potential conflict of interest” only after The Post asked about Mulgrew-Daretany’s work history last week. It has referred the matter to Schools Investigator Richard Condon and the conflict board, she said.
Mulgrew-Daretany, who lives in Staten Island like her union-leader brother, hung up when reached by The Post on Friday.
The possible violation came to light the same week Mike Mulgrew won a second full term as president of the United Federation of Teachers, a post he has held since 2009. Union members re-elected him with 84 percent of the vote.
The DOE grants employees child-care leaves up to the August after a kid’s fourth birthday. Mulgrew-Daretany extended her leave because she gave birth again.
She did not collect a salary or benefits during the leave. “It’s an entitlement,” Pankratz said. “You’re guaranteed that your job will still be there when you return.”
Mulgrew-Daretany’s new DOE job, which she started in January, is funded by a grant to study how schools help students prepare for college and careers, officials said.
How she got a higher-paying management position after an 11-year absence was not explained. The DOE could not say Friday whether she listed Brienza’s on her résumé.
Betsy Combier, a paralegal and blogger, said she wasn’t surprised at Mulgrew-Daretany’s cushy deal. “At the DOE, it’s not what you know, but who you know,” she said.
Leaving aside Mulgrew-Daretany’s failure to disclose her work with Brienza's for a minute, I am very interested in just how Mulgrew-Daretany got a $75,828 a year management gig with the DOE after not having worked in the system for 11 years.
Did Mulgrew pull strings to get her the job?
Or did Mulgrew not have to pull strings because the implicit understanding between Mulgrew and the DOE ("You help us, we help you...") was already there?
In either case, something smells here.
I also find it hard to believe Mulgrew-Daretany didn't list her COO job at Brienza's on the application for the DOE management position.
Although again, either way, something smells.
Either the DOE hired her without knowing she had management experience because she didn't list her Brienza's COO experience on her application/resume or the DOE did know about the Brienza's job and didn't care about the potential conflict of interest.
In any case, the takeaway from this is that Mulgrew's sister got a sweet management gig from the DOE, no questions asked.
Nice work if you can get it.
You have to wonder, how did somebody with the last name "Mulgrew" get that nice work?
Well, this is a lot like the Mulgrew at Grady woodshed story.
ReplyDeleteIf he were a mere mortal, he'd be in a rubber room. If we're going to let Mulgrew slide, we should extend the same to the two Horndog High ladies and say that they were consenting adults.
The problem is that there is a double-standard that the higher-ups benefit from connections. How Mulgrew-Daretany got this far suggests that some connections were pulled. Other mothers would be terminated a lot earlier, as rules are extremely stringent on maternity leave in NYC.
That's a great point, and one I will post about later in the day.
ReplyDeleteThanks. One of the Madison High teachers claims that video surveillance tape would exonerate her.
DeleteShe got terminated,
yet she's made a compelling case.
But I think the larger story is hundreds of NYC teaching mothers feeling compelled to return to work earlier than they feel comfortable, but are terminated. This 11 year free pass Mulgrew-Daretany got is a scandal in itself.
I agree. I'm going to do a couple of posts about this over the next few days. It needs to be exposed, even if it's to my little readership...
Deletemr mulgrew is as corrupt as randy weingarten.he doesnt see or support his teachers we dont have a union. there are teachers who were accused of sexual misconduct and case was dismissed.because noone ever showed up to court. the bd of ed dept of ed and osi and nysut all work together they were brought up on 3020 charges n was advised to resign by the nysut who was representing them because the arbitrator would of found them guilty. where is the justice. mr mulgrew is fake and our union sold us out along time ago. why wasnt he removed when he slept with his colleague at grady hs there is a double standard and something should be done about this.those teachers at madison should not have lost their jobs
ReplyDelete