Buffalo anti-poverty agency will pay Texas advisor $1.7 million

certainly one of Buffalo's greatest anti-poverty corporations paid $1.7 million during the last seven years in a series of no-bid contracts to a Texas consulting enterprise for assist working its Head birth courses.

ultimate 12 months proved probably the most profitable for J. Walker firms, which got $463,950 from the group motion company of Western long island, based on annual experiences the agency filed with the IRS.

"I work on software design, the place the rubber meets the road, making sure infants are becoming what they need," mentioned Jon L. Walker, the company's CEO.

The CAO's Head birth application in Erie County ranked among the lowest 10% of Head beginning classes within the nation remaining yr, in keeping with federal lecture room observations.

Walker, who pointed out he consults for 253 Head birth classes within the u.s., has no academic credentials in early childhood education, nor any adventure in the lecture room, according to his son Julian.

Federal regulations do not limit how tons money a Head delivery program will pay a specialist. They do, despite the fact, stipulate that Head birth programs take acceptable steps to make sure that contracts are bid or an company is paying market fee for services it purchases.

The CAO's most contemporary audit didn't determine any illegal activity however criticized the nonprofit for not in search of bids for the work executed by Walker and his 24-12 months-historic son Julian, who also has a contract with the CAO. The anti-poverty company paid Julian Walker $123,225 final yr to aid boost father or mother engagement.

"There has not been a formal bidding process for the features offered by using J. Walker Consulting, which would serve as a basis for verifying that the quotes charged through the consultant are aggressive," auditing enterprise Szymkowiak & pals wrote in January to the CAO's board of directors.

Invoices from Jon Walker's enterprise and his son Julian's business didn't indicate which software their services covered, the auditors discovered. That could lead to the misallocation of money across promises, they cautioned.

L. Nathan Hare, the CAO's chief govt officer, talked about CAO payments to Walker's company will total $2.1 million from 2009 via 2020. He declined to focus on the contracts in aspect however spoke of most of the work was not put out to bid. He did not explain why bids have been no longer sought. 

The CAO decided a couple of 12 months ago to both are trying to find bids for the work achieved by Walker's company or have it carried out through personnel individuals, he noted. The company is "in that resolution-making system," he spoke of. It continues to be contracting with Walker, Hare stated.

Walker declined to talk about the specifics of his contracts with the CAO. He did say that the $464,000 the company mentioned to the IRS as having paid him remaining 12 months sounded high to him.

"that could be an overstatement," he spoke of. "loads of it's travel and commute repayment."

more than $four hundred,000 of the payments to Walker's company final 12 months coated the cost for CAO worker's to attend courses to earn their certification in infant construction, Hare referred to. For other features, Walker's every day expense is set $three,000, Hare observed.

directors of seven different equivalent-dimension Head birth classes interviewed by means of The Buffalo news observed they have got never paid a consultant as a good deal as the CAO has paid Walker for the types of capabilities he has supplied.

administrators of the seven programs, from Rochester to Salt Lake city, stated that each time feasible, they use body of workers members to finished whatever thing work is needed, the use of consultants only as a latest hotel.

"a specialist doesn't have the identical degree of accountability as a staff grownup does," observed Loretta Kruger, vice president for early childhood capabilities at motion for a far better group in Rochester.

The CAO would need to rent more group of workers to provide all the practicing and different functions that Walker does, Hare mentioned.

"Working with an outdoor consultant company that has a staff that will also be platooned to different classes across the country, that we will agenda at jointly agreeable times, is a extra productive and cost-effective use of our substances," Hare referred to.

The CAO all started contracting with Walker in 2009, regardless of some troubling issues in his historical past. in response to public statistics:

Walker, who was an coverage agent, pleaded no contest to a forgery can charge in 2005 in Texas. He admitted that he compelled  an extra coverage agent to take out a $a hundred,000 lifestyles insurance policy on her ex-husband and that he stuffed out the insurance papers as if he have been her ex-husband. When the coverage company called to determine definite counsel, Walker impersonated the ex-husband. Walker changed into ordered to operate eighty hours of neighborhood provider.

when you consider that 1997, the IRS has filed a complete of $1.5 million in tax liens towards Walker and his spouse. up to now, the couple has paid $32,734 towards that federal tax debt.

Hare said he was now not aware of the forgery cost or the tax liens.

'you're outstandingly incredible'

Walker appears into the camera as he shares some concepts in a YouTube video, the sky in the back of him sunny and blue, his voice soothing and calm.

"have you ever been in a circumstance where every person on the planet told you all of the reasons why now not?" he says. "well, pay attention, on this week's Motivational Monday, I'm right here to let you know that anything else so that you can absolutely put your intellect to, you could really accomplish."

Walker's YouTube movies trap him in quite a lot of situations: sitting in a hotel lobby, driving his car, repairing a batting cage. In some, he's wearing a T-shirt and shorts or a music suit. In others, he's clad in a business suit or a fedora and button-up shirt. occasionally, he weaves in a sports reference or strikes a religious observe.

"you are pleasing. you are beautifully crafted. you're outstandingly incredible," he assures viewers in a single of his successful Wednesdays movies. "You easily have to harness the manner by which you're astounding."

It is this motivational approach that permeates not best Walker's social media presence, but his speeches and practicing periods, as smartly.

"he is extraordinarily charismatic and simple to take heed to," talked about Louise Bidleman, a Head start trainer who used to work for the CAO.

Walker can make an impact on his viewers.

One late summer season day just a few years in the past, lots of of CAO teachers, aides and other team of workers gathered in the cafeteria at a Head start core on East Ferry road.

Walker asked all of the pregnant girls within the room to stand. several women rose. Walker reached into his pocket and pulled out a roll of $one hundred expenses — and exceeded one to each and every of them. The funds become theirs to retain.

"His element was that after someone asks you to do whatever thing, be sure to do what you're asked, even though you might no longer remember why," noted Bidleman. "there have been probably americans sitting down who have been pregnant who didn't stand up once they have been asked to, and now it was too late."

people who had remained seated, she pointed out, misplaced the opportunity to receive $a hundred.

CAO pays Head start administrator, too

apart from paying Walker's enterprise, the CAO also paid a full-time administrator to run its Head birth application.

Phyllis McBride, the agency's early childhood administrator, will make $52.seventy five an hour — about $109,000 — this year, in response to CAO price range files got via The information.

McBride all started her profession on the CAO in 1969. The company hired her as an executive secretary and administration tips expert, a position she held for 24 years, based on her resume.

In 1996, McBride earned a bachelor's degree in company administration from Medaille college. Over the subsequent decade, she changed into promoted a number of times, finally becoming the administrator in cost of the head delivery program.

Like Walker, McBride has no educational credentials in early childhood schooling, nor any journey within the lecture room. Federal Head start laws don't require that. but these laws do require that she "have ample capabilities, training and experience, and potential" to "make certain remarkable provider beginning."

All administrators of Head birth programs should be accepted through the federal Administration for babies and households.

"Phyllis McBride's skills to steer our Head delivery administration are gigantic," Hare talked about. He declined to complex.

McBride, who didn't reply to requests for remark, became the grownup on the CAO responsible for hiring Walker as a Head start consultant. She saw one in every of Walker's displays at a country wide Head start conference a couple of decade ago, Walker referred to.

She asked him to do some work for the CAO, he observed. Over time, Walker and his company multiplied their function in the company.

community action firm CEO L. Nathan Hare is surrounded by using little ones at Memorial Temple Head start on Sycamore highway in Buffalo. (Robert Kirkham/Buffalo news file photograph)

Thorny concerns at CAO

The CAO runs Head beginning programs in Erie and Niagara counties, receiving $33 million in federal supplies funded with the aid of taxpayer cash to serve greater than 2,000 children a year. on account of the low rating of its Erie County software closing 12 months, the CAO lost the computerized renewal of that contract.

The CAO also will need to compete for the renewal of its Niagara County provide because a baby wandered out of a Niagara Falls classroom two years ago, omitted by way of teachers.

The contract with Walker is the newest in a sequence of thorny concerns confronting the CAO.

CAO board members voted in October to fireplace Hare after raising issues about his handling of finances for greater than a year. The agency's legal professional, although, asserted that the vote turned into illegitimate, and Hare by no means left his job. Hare says the vote to fire him turned into orchestrated through two board participants decided to remove him. The vote, he says, violated CAO bylaws.

In January, 4 of the administrators who voted to fire Hare were removed from the board, after the attorney asserted there were issues with the way they had been appointed.

The FBI and state legal professional generic are asking questions concerning the CAO's operations, focusing on its use of government funds.  

How Walker bought started

Walker begun doing consulting work in 1989, he pointed out. after which, about two decades ago, he stumbled into working with Head birth programs.

"i was talking to an early researching expert who become the director of a Head birth program and he or she become having issue managing her workforce, figuring out simple enterprise concepts, morale," he mentioned. "I begun to work with that firm and located I adored it. I all started to immerse myself in it."

through the years, he has worked with Head birth programs across the united states, even providing to state-level conferences in California, Michigan, Arkansas and Wisconsin. The CAO has been among his larger customers, he pointed out, however not his greatest.

The web page and facebook web page for J. Walker corporations describe functions the enterprise offers for nonprofits to Fortune 500 agencies, including executive coaching, strategic planning and management building. 

however nowhere does the company's on-line presence element the background and skills of Jon Walker. He stopped responding to questions from The Buffalo news once the questions concentrated on his qualifications, forgery can charge and tax liens.

He helped CAO expand

at the start, the CAO paid Walker to train worker's to earn federally required credentials and assist the agency recruit people who already had these credentials.

He also assisted with the company's reorganization and provided staff building and leadership practising, Hare referred to. and thanks to Walker's aid, the CAO secured money from the 2009 American recuperation and Reinvestment Act and turned into named by means of the governor as a program of Excellence in 2010, in keeping with Hare.

The scope of Walker's work with the CAO grew. eventually, he additionally helped with provide writing, application branding, board working towards, strategic planning, software self-assessment and leadership construction, Hare noted.

"once we started working with them, they had been a significantly smaller company," Walker observed. "Now they are tremendously better because of the work we now have executed."

Walker helped the CAO write a successful furnish to take over the top delivery program in Niagara County and put into area an settlement to soak up the Bethel Head birth application, adjustments that tremendously expanded the company's reach, he pointed out. He additionally helped the agency create partnerships with native colleges and high colleges that deliver jobs to fresh graduates.

"Phyllis will have a fantastic thought, something she desires to have performed. We conceptualize that conception and then do every thing we are able to to make that idea a fact," Walker pointed out. 

McBride met Walker's son Julian when he become working for his father.

Julian Walker earned a bachelor's diploma in psychology from valuable State tuition in Wilberforce, Ohio, in 2016. One month later, he registered his company, Encouraging father or mother Engagement Curriculum, with the fort Bend County clerk in Texas.

a couple of 12 months later, the CAO awarded him a contract that paid him $123,225 for his first yr of labor, in keeping with statistics the agency filed with the IRS. He these days started his third yr working with the CAO.

EPEC holds hobbies similar to soccer and soccer clinics and a Valentine's Day dance to boost dad or mum involvement.

dad or mum engagement has expanded drastically, Hare mentioned. He declined to give specifics.

"My degree in psychology has enabled me to keep in mind how little ones function, how the paradigm between mother or father and child interact," Julian Walker referred to. "I remember that each mother or father and newborn are looking to connect with the faculty."

different Head begins pay consultants less

In Kansas city, Mo., the local Head delivery software paid below $10,000 for its mum or dad engagement initiative. The business it hired, potent Fathers, is run with the aid of a former faculty major who has knowledgeable more than 200,000 fathers over the past 15 years.

The software in Kansas city paid that advisor as soon as to return educate a few of its fathers, who then knowledgeable other fathers, in accordance with Liz Smith, the pinnacle beginning software director at the Mid america Regional Council.

The Kansas metropolis software — like the Head begins in Salt Lake metropolis and Minneapolis — has not paid any advisor greater than $a hundred,000 in any of the past three years, in line with IRS studies.

"probably the most we've paid a person advisor can be for mental fitness features. they might be our greater contracts," Smith talked about. "the most we've ever paid a specialist in a yr turned into likely $30,000, and that's for therapy for babies."

It's now not exceptional for Head delivery courses to pay a consultant a couple of thousand greenbacks for one or two days of personnel training on subject matters corresponding to classroom self-discipline or self-look after academics, based on Head birth officials in other cities. however when that happens, it's a one-time practicing, and the whole tab for that advisor for that year would be under $10,000.

When Head beginning classes in other cities do spend six figures on a single advisor, it's for issues equivalent to busing, food provider or building-connected renovation reminiscent of roofing, officers said. 

"If we had lengthy-time period wants, we'd hire an employee to try this, no longer a specialist," pointed out Stacy Weight, chief administrative officer at Utah group action.