Wall Street banks have taken more than $300 MILLION from Denver Public Schools. This is money that should have reduced class sizes, prevented program cuts, and provided the best possible education for our kids.

Denver Public Schools entered into three toxic interest rate swaps in 2008 with JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America, and Royal Bank of Canada. From 2008-2011, our schools lost $105 MILLION to these banks. From 2011-2013, we lost another $38 MILLION.

The deals were terminated in 2013, but doing so resulted in the following massive fees:

JPMorgan Chase: $42 MILLION
Wells Fargo: $34.4 MILLION
Bank of America: $70.5 MILLION
Royal Bank of Canada: $35.1 MILLION

That’s roughly $182 MILLION in termination fees alone. Denver taxpayers will continue to pay off these deals until 2037.

Please sign our petition to the Denver School Board and Superintendent Tom Boasberg demanding that they:

• Use their full economic and legal power to make the banks pay back the money they have taken from us, including lobbying the SEC to bring a disgorgement action against the banks.
  
  
• Provide basic transparency and accountability measures to Denver taxpayers.
  
  
• End the current, active policy on derivatives (Policy DFC – “Derivatives Policy”) that permits Denver Public Schools to continue taking on more high-risk toxic financial deals.

DPS Swaps Press Coverage:

New York Times:
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/06/business/06denver.html?_r=0

Denver Business Journal:
http://www.bizjournals.com/denver/print-edition/2013/04/12/denver-public-schools-to-spend-1774m.html?page=all​

http://www.bizjournals.com/denver/news/2013/04/17/dps-sells-537-million-in-bonds-to.html

Bloomberg:
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2013-05-10/denver-pays-wall-street-216-million-as-swaps-fail-muni-credit

Image Credit: Roger Karlsson; http://www.free-photo-gallery.org/photos/red-apple-core/