Judge OKs firm for Education Partnership audit
11:36 AM Thu, Jul 24, 2008 | Permalink
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PROVIDENCE -- A judge this morning authorized the hiring of an accounting firm to conduct a forensic audit of the finances of the Education Partnership, a business-backed advocacy group that went into receivership last month. Superior Court Judge Michael A. Silverstein granted a petition for the receiver to hire Sullivan & Co., a Providence firm of certified public accountants. The initial phase of the work will cost an estimated $4,000, lawyers said yesterday. The judge's order said Sullivan & Co. will "assist the receiver in investigating (the Education Partnership's) business operations and auditing the financial transactions of and programs conducted by the defendant to determine if there are potential claims against third parties for the receiver to assess pursuing." Sullivan & Co. is to provide estimates for each step of the process to the receiver, to lawyers for Sovereign Bank, and to lawyers for Alan Shawn Feinstein and the Feinstein Foundation. Those services will include inventorying and boxing all of the Education Partnership's books and records and reviewing them; conducting the audit of the Education Partnership's financial transactions and programs; and helping the receiver determine if there are potential claims against third parties based on the audit results. If there is an objection to the estimated costs of those services, the receiver will let the judge know, and the accounting firm won't proceed until the court resolves that objection. The accounting firm is to provide an update on the status of its work at a hearing scheduled for 9:30 a.m. Aug. 19.
The Education Partnership went into receivership in part because several contracts to produce research and reports for municipalities fell through, receiver Allan M. Shine has said. Shine has said money from different sources -- including federal grants earmarked for specific programs, grants from private sources and scholarship money -- apparently was mingled with the Education Partnership's operational expenses. Since 2005, the Education Partnership has administered the Louis Feinstein Memorial Scholarship, created 15 years ago by philanthropist Alan Shawn Feinstein in honor of his late father, Louis. Among those owed money are 49 Feinstein scholarship recipients, lawyers have said. Other creditors include Sovereign Bank, which lent the organization $305,000, and several teachers and instructors who said the Education Partnership never paid them for after-school programs they provided this year at a Providence public school. 
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