An expensive prep school with a $50 million endowment which the children of former presidents Bill Clinton and Barack Obama attended accepted a $5.2 million loan under the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP), but after Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin urged “private schools with significant endowments” to “return” PPP funds, the school refused to do so.
The school, Sidwell Friends, where Chelsea Clinton, Maila Obama and Sasha Obama were educated, receives tens of millions of dollars in tuition every year, but its board of trustees claimed its “fiduciary responsibilities” and “Quakervalues” were enough justification for refusing to return the money, as The Washington Free Beacon reports. The school said it would utilize the money to pay its faculty and staff.
The huge loan, the Beacon noted, “is one of the largest in the second tranche of PPP funds,” as less than 0.07% of the 2.2 million loans handed out since April 27 have reached $5 million.
Sidwell Friends is launching a capital campaign to fund its purchase of properties it has bought in recent years, including 3939 Wisconsin Ave., N.W, which cost $8.2 million, and 3720 Upton St. N.W., which had been a nursing home and whose residents had attempted to block the sale of the property in 2016 for $32.5 million, according to the Free Beacon. – READ MORE
Listen to the insightful Thomas Paine Podcast Below --