NYC schools chancellor David Banks had no waiver to ‘benefit’ brother’s business clients
Schools Chancellor David Banks never obtained a waiver to meet with vendors who hired his younger brother, Terence, despite a possible conflict of interest, officials told The Post.
“Public servants are prohibited from taking any official action to benefit any person or firm ‘associated’ with that public servant,” said Carolyn Miller, executive director of the city’s Conflicts of Interest Board.
No such waiver was granted to Chancellor Banks, who met with Marlon Lindsay, the CEO of a tech-ed company that later collected $1.4 million in taxpayer funds from city schools.
Terence Banks’ consulting firm, Pearl Alliance, had listed Lindsay’s tech-ed company, 21stCentEd, among its clients.
Within a month of hiring Terence, Lindsay landed a private meeting with the schools chancellor in October 2022. Since then, as first reported by The Associated Press, the company was hired for programs to help schools teach artificial intelligence, robotics, and automation.
The chancellor has refused to answer questions about dealings with his brother’s consulting business.
The COIB “has almost never granted a waiver for a public servant to take an official action to benefit a person or firm” that he or she is associated with, Miller said.
The latest revelation comes amid at least four corruption investigations into Mayor Eric Adams’ administration, entangling leaders of the NYPD and Department of Education.
This month, the FBI raided the Harlem home that Chancellor Banks shares with his fiancee, First Deputy Mayor Sheena Wright, and confiscated both their cell phones.
They also seized the phones of Terence Banks and another brother, Philip Banks, Adams’ deputy mayor for public safety.
On Friday, DOE spokesman Nathaniel Styer would not explain why Banks had no COIB waiver to meet with Lindsay, but sought to separate the chancellor from the vendor’s lucrative gigs, suggesting the hiring of 21stCentEd was out of his hands.
“All spending on companies owned by Marlon Lindsay” have come from district offices or schools at amounts under $25,000 – the threshold that would require going through the contract process, he said.