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Carl Goodwin

Mr. Goodwin has over 30 years of professional experience in financial and fiscal analysis. He has special expertise on redevelopment and property taxation, including computer modeling and analysis in areas of importance to school and college districts. In the area of redevelopment, Mr. Goodwin prepares compliance audits of redevelopment pass-through payments to school and college districts, as well as projections of future payments. He also monitors and evaluates legislative proposals involving redevelopment and has played a valuable role in adoption of several important pieces of redevelopment legislation affecting school and college districts. He also had significant involvement in Placentia-Yorba Linda Unified School District v. Yorba Linda Redevelopment Agency.

Mr. Goodwin is a Ph.D. candidate in Political Science and has an M.A. degree in Political Science from the University of California at Riverside, with specialties in urban politics, public policy, and computer science, and a B.A. degree in history from Swarthmore College. He has also made invited presentations on redevelopment and pass-through issues to CASBO, CCLC, and the Property Tax Managers Subcommittee of CAAC.

dante gumucio

Mr. Gumucio is a professional economist with over 30 years of experience in economic, financial, and academic research, with special expertise in redevelopment, urban economics, and municipal finance. Mr. Gumucio has testified before various legislative committees regarding redevelopment, including invited testimony before the Senate Select Committee on Redevelopment. He has also provided technical support and legislative advice on redevelopment to a variety of statewide education organizations, including but not limited to Coalition for Adequate School Housing (CASH), California Association of School Business Officials (CASBO), and Community College League of California (CCLC). In addition, he has made presentations regarding pass-through payment issues to the California Redevelopment Association (CRA) and to the Property Tax Managers Subcommittee of the County Auditor’s Association of California (CAAC).

Mr. Gumucio is a Ph.D. candidate in economics from the University of Wisconsin, Madison, and has taught courses in economics at California State University, Fullerton; in economics and mathematics at Chapman University; and in Financial Aspects of Planning through the University Extension at the University of California, Irvine. He has also appeared as coordinator or featured speaker in University Extension seminars sponsored by the University of California at Davis and Los Angeles.

dwight berg

Dwight Berg is an economist with almost 30 years of experience in applied economic and financial research, with special expertise in tax credit financings for public education agencies, including charter public schools, as well as other non-profit and for-profit entities. The primary focus of Mr. Berg’s professional efforts over the last 15 years has been public education, with an emphasis on creating more efficient facilities procurement processes from both a financing and construction perspective.

In particular, his efforts to create a highly structured New Markets Tax Credit (NMTC) facility financing program have yielded significant benefits for local education agencies (LEAs) nationwide. To date Mr. Berg has structured, managed, and closed over $643 million in NMTC and other tax credit or related financing transactions, predominantly for public school facility financing.

In 2004 Mr. Berg participated in the advisory committee for NCB Development Corporation’s community development entity that subsequently was allocated $75 million of NMTC investment authority. In 2002 he was appointed as one of three technical advisors to the Charter Friends National Network Facilities Financing Working Group. The Group developed positions on charter facility and financing issues and organized advocacy efforts around federal and state policy on charter facilities financing. Previously, Mr. Berg served as a member of the State of California’s School Cost Containment Working Group, a 12-member panel directed by the State legislature to identify methods which school districts could use to reduce construction costs. His editorial in the Los Angeles Times in August 1999 identified the reason California State school funding allocation formulas result in overpayment of capital facilities funds of about $400 million to some school districts.

Most of Mr. Berg’s efforts in recent years have focused on charter public schools, because they face greater hurdles in financing facilities than other LEAs, and therefore require exceptional creativity in safely and securely achieving their facilities financing objectives. Some of the charter public schools that Mr. Berg has provided with tax credit financing services include:

  • Academy of the Pacific Rim Charter Public School
  • Berkshire Arts & Technology Charter Public School
  • Boston Collegiate Charter School
  • Bridge Boston Charter School
  • Brooke Schools
  • E.L. Haynes Public Charter School
  • Excellence Charter School of Bedford-Stuyvesant (Uncommon Schools)
  • KIPP Cooper Norcross Academy
  • KIPP St. Louis
  • Marion P. Thomas Charter School
  • Match Charter Public School
  • North Star Academy Charter School of Newark (Uncommon Schools)
  • TEAM Academy (KIPP New Jersey)
  • Thurgood Marshall Academy
Mr. Berg’s college education is from the California Institute of Technology, where in four years he dual majored in economics and engineering and earned a Master of Science in Social Science (Economics). Mr. Berg has a Series 50 Qualified Representative License and a Series 54 Qualified Principal License from MSRB. He has been a California Registered Civil Engineer (License No. 48804) since 1992 but primarily practices economics, public finance, and financial project management.

Carly simard

Ms. Simard is a highly skilled professional with 17 years of experience in fiscal and financial analysis. She has special technical expertise in redevelopment, property taxation, and municipal finance, including computer modeling and analysis in areas of importance to school and college districts. Working closely with PEI’s CEO, Dante Gumucio, and
other PEI consultants, Ms. Simard is one the State’s leading experts regarding pass-throughs and other RDA revenues received by local education agencies (LEAs), as well as implementation of the 2011 RDA dissolution law (RDL) generally.

Ms. Simard prepares detailed compliance audits of RDA pass-through payments to school districts, college districts, and county offices of education throughout California, based on complex financial reports and unpublished primary tax apportionment data from county auditor-controllers and other local regulatory bodies to ensure compliance with contractual, statutory, and regulatory requirements. She also prepares rigorous projections of future annual pass-through payments based on large-scale, macro-driven, and data-intensive computer models she develops for that purpose, all in accordance with the requirements of the RDL. In addition to evaluating legislative proposals involving redevelopment and property taxation, Ms. Simard also provides guidance to LEAs regarding how to optimize utilization of pass-through payments and other RDA revenues responsibly and accurately.

Ms. Simard has a B.S degree cum laude in Business Administration from San Francisco State University, where she was on the Dean’s list, the President’s honor roll, and a member of the Beta Gamma Sigma Honor Society. She also holds an Economic Development Certificate from the California Association for Local Economic Development.