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Supreme court looks at tax-exempt status of firm attached to lease of Horizon Science Academy

http://www.dispatch.com/content/stories/local/2016/04/19/court-to-decide-if-company-that-leases-property-to-charter-schools-is-subject-to-taxes.html

The Ohio Supreme Court will decide if a company that owns and leases property to publicly funded charter schools should have to pay taxes.

Ohio Tax Commissioner Joseph Testa and the Ohio Board of Tax Appeals ruled that a company, 250 Shoup Mill LLC, owes local taxes on property it leases to Horizon Science Academy, a public charter school in Dayton.

Before the high court today, an attorney for 250 Shoup Mill countered that it is a nonprofit, tax-exempt entity and should not have to pay taxes. The company is a subsidiary of New Plan Learning, which owns properties it leases to 11 New Horizon schools in Ohio, including two in Columbus.

The Dayton charter school pays 250 Shoup Mill $33,000 a month, or $396,000 a year, to lease its property. The lease money comes from Ohio taxpayers through the Ohio Department of Education, which funds both public and charter schools.

Testa's office concluded that while the charter school was exempt from taxation in 2010, 250 Shoup Mill was not. Testa's office denied the group's application for a tax exemption, a decision affirmed by the Ohio Board of Tax Appeals.

"This has all the hallmarks of a commercial lease, including annual increases in those payments that happen by the virtue of the passage of time and penalties for default," said Melissa Baldwin, an assistant attorney general representing Testa's office.

M. Charles Collins, an attorney representing 250 Shoup Mill, said the company qualifies for the tax exemption as a charitable and educational entity even though it collects rent but does not operate the school and has no "expectation, intent or desire to profit from this."

Chief Justice Maureen O'Connor questioned Collins about how it would be appropriate for taxpayers to pay $33,000-a-month lease for a charter school building valued at about $3 million that at the end of the lease would still be owned by a private company.

However the decision goes, it won't matter going forward because in 2011 the General Assembly slipped a provision into the state budget expanding the tax exemption to cover charter school property owners like 250 Shoup Mill, in addition to school operators.

ajohnson@dispatch.com

Watch Ohio Supreme Court Case on this

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Gulen Movement / Religious influence at Ohio School

http://wkbn.com/2015/06/15/turkish-religious-movement-influence-alleged-at-ohio-school/


COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) – A recent court filing raises anew allegations a Turkish religious movement is wielding influence inside a chain of Ohio charter schools targeted in federal raids last year, claims the schools’ operator maintains are false.
An ex-employee of Horizon Science Academy Denison Middle School made the allegations in a May affidavit filed in Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Court in an ongoing discrimination lawsuit brought by his wife, a fired teacher.
Mustafa Emanet, who worked at the school from August 2006 to May 2009, says followers of the moderate Islamic cleric Fethullah Gulen brought him to the U.S. from Turkey without a job interview, demanded cash kickbacks to the Gulen movement from his pay and pension and repeatedly deceived the U.S. government.
Emanet, of Elyria, says the school’s Turkish teachers and administrators were called to exclusive staff meetings, attended religious retreats and made regular visits to the Poconos compound where Gulen lives in exile. Emanet says he saw a man who was with him on a 2007 trip to the compound deny any connection to Gulen in a 2012 television interview.
The Chicago-based Concept Schools, which operates the Horizon and Noble academies in Ohio, continues to deny formal ties to the Gulen movement. Officials there have said many of them admire the teachings of Gulen, a promoter of universal education, but he doesn’t run their schools or benefit from the public money they collect.
Spokesman Mark Weaver said claims in the affidavit have been previously raised and disproved. He said Emanet and his wife, Mary Addi, have a longstanding vendetta against the school because of her firing and because it’s non-union and are spreading falsehoods. He produced a letter in which Concept’s attorney says Addi was terminated for reasons including “breach of contract, fraud, dishonesty, (and) insubordination.”
“The school fired this disgruntled former employee because she was caught lying and caught working another job when she had promised taxpayers she would work full time,” he said. “Later, she destroyed numerous public records to cover her tracks.”
According to the affidavit, Murat Sagnak, then-director of the Horizon Academy, instructed Emanet to tell officials at the U.S. Embassy in Istanbul if they asked “that he (Sagnak) had conducted several phone interviews with me, which never actually happened.”
Emanet says employees also were told to hand over the usernames and passwords to their State Teachers Retirement System accounts with the expectation they would “give the Gulen Movement our STRS retirement funds if we left the school.” Further, he alleges Concept raised his pay from $28,000 to $42,000 and he “was instructed to give the money back in cash to the Gulen Movement every pay period.” Federal labor officials settled an earlier claim between Emanet and Concept on his back pay.
Weaver said Addi’s claims surrounding Horizon were dismissed as unsubstantiated by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission five years ago. He said fewer than 10 percent of Concept Schools teachers are Turkish and money they donate to any cause is up to them.
Emanet did not return a call seeking additional information on Monday.
(Copyright 2015 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.)