Breaking: Starr Payments to One Transition Team Member = $3,000 Fee and $299 a night Hotel ($343 with tax)

An investigative reporter in New Rochelle, NY has uncovered what Montgomery County parents and citizens never were told.  Former Superintendent Joshua Starr used MCPS Operating Budget funds to pay for his "transition team."  Starr's transition team was created, hired and paid behind closed doors.  The budget for this team was never disclosed to the public or approved at a public Board of Education meeting.  

We now know that just one of these team members cost children and classrooms $4,163.  That's money that should have gone to classrooms, supplies and teacher salaries but instead was secretly diverted to a "team" created by Starr.

A New York investigative reporter has exposed the payments made from the MCPS Operating Budget to team member Brian Osborne, now the superintendent in New Rochelle, NY.  The documents showing the MCPS payments to Osborne are at the link at the bottom of this post.

There were 15 members of Joshua Starr's transition team and a report was generated.  How much of the MCPS Operating Budget did Joshua Starr spend on his transition team and their report?  

...The first is a letter of recommendation from Dr. Starr. He says that the first person he called to help him when he was hired as Superintendent of Montgomery County Schools was Brian Osborne. Starr, in fact, put Osborne on the payroll of the Montgomery County School District. Records obtained by Talk of the Sound under a Maryland Public Information Act request show that Osborne was paid fees totaling $3,000 plus reimbursement of expenses for travel and entertainment totaling $1,163.00 for 20 hours of work, primarily two days of “transition team” meetings in Maryland, one on June 16, 2011 and another on August 23, 2011...

http://www.newrochelletalk.com/content/tangled-web-between-montgomery-county-maryland-public-schools-and-new-rochelle-city-school

Osborne Consulting Payments from Montgomery County Public Schools [PDF]