New Virtual School leader to earn $175K

President will earn less money than his two predecessors

The State Board of Education on Wednesday approved a contract for the new leader of the troubled Florida Virtual School and fired two lobbying firms that had worked for the school.

Louis Algaze, a 30-year veteran of Miami-Dade public schools who was named last month as the school’s new chief executive, will be paid $175,000, less than the salaries of the two previous presidents.

Robert Porter, who died suddenly in March, had a contract for $290,000 and Dhyana Ziegler, who became interim president, was paid $200,000.

In another cost-cutting move, the state board, which the Legislature and Gov. Ron DeSantis tapped to oversee the school after disbanding its board of trustees, approved a proposal to end a $120,000 yearly contract with The Rubin Group and an annual $60,000 deal with Southern Strategy Group.

Algaze indicated during the meeting that the lobbying firms weren’t providing any “unique” services to the school.

“It is unnecessary to spend public funds on contract lobbyists,” he said in a press release from the Department of Education.

In the same release, Education Commissioner Richard Corcoran noted that other state agencies are prohibited from using public money for private lobbying contracts and said FLVS “should live by the spirit of the same rules.”

During the meeting, state board members puzzled over some agenda items and decided to postpone some contract approvals and other proposals such as a move to, at least temporarily, shut down the virtual school’s foundation.

They cited the newness of their role in overseeing the school and the lack of a general counsel to advise them.

The school, which serves 200,000 students, has been without an in-house attorney since last year when Frank Kruppenbacher resigned amid an investigation into his behavior at the school. An audit revealed questions about how Kruppenbacher selected some vendors.

An Orlando Sentinel investigation pointed out Kruppenbacher’s close ties to some virtual school board members, including Marva Johnson and Michael Olenick, who are on the state board today.

The Legislature then called for the school’s trustees to be disbanded and for an audit of the school due later this year to lawmakers and the governor.

“I’m actually looking forward to the operational audit,” Johnson said during Wednesday’s meeting as the board struggled to understand why some of the items on the agenda were coming to them for approval rather than being handled by staff.

Board member Tom Grady, for example, questioned why there is $76 million in the school’s reserve fund and briefly alluded to the problems UCF faced over how it used operational carry-forward money for construction, which at the time wasn’t allowed under state rules.

Algaze said he’s asked the same question.

“I don’t think our school districts have that kind of money in their carry forwards and reserve funds,” Grady said. “Mischief can occur at the university level. That’s a lot of money.”

An FLVS administrator explained that school districts are allowed to borrow money, but the virtual school cannot and needs a cushion in case of unexpected circumstances.

Grady also questioned the need for a marketing budget and wanted more information about the school’s revenues, noting competition from private for-profit online schools such as K12 Inc. that offer similar services.

“This is really equivalent to an ed tech company,” Grady said of the public virtual school that will receive more than $210 million in state money this year.