Jeff Cohen Reports: Missing $670,000 Casting Clouds Over Hartford.

Full marks to WNPR’s Jeff Cohen. He’s broken a jarring story of a missing Hartford board of education insurance premium payment to a local insurance broker with ties to the politically connected Cloud family. What a web. While the story has not reached its end, it has all the signs of heading for a bad conclusion. The saga includes City Treasurer Adam Cloud’s office wiring $670,000 to insurance broker, Hybrid Insurance Group, for coverage purchased by the city’s board of education. The money did not reach the companies providing the city’s excess and umbrella policies, Starr Indemnity and National Casualty.

A September 24th memo from board of education COO Paula Altieri to school superintendent Christina Kishimoto exudes a sense of urgency over the missing money. Hybrid’s Earl O’Garra was unresponsive to inquiries by the city asking where the money had gone. The crisis continues.

Hybrid is a tenant at 30 Lewis Street, Hartford, a building the Altieri memo notes, which “is owned by an entity in which the Treasurer and/or his family members (father/brother) may have an ownership interest.” Hybrid is represented by lobbyist Chris Cloud, Adam’s brother. The state’s Department of Economic and Community Development provided $100,000 loan and $26,320 grant to Hybrid to move from Windsor to Hartford in 20012. Curiously, state Representative David Baram (D-Bloomfield) did not support the state funding to move the company out of his district.

A 2012 news report stated, “Hybrid focuses on difficult-to-place property and casualty risks.” Hartford’s school board does not fit that definition.

This is a story that looks like it will have an extended run in the public square.