CMS investigation: 4 key unanswered questions

A version of the following article appeared in the October 19, 2026, edition of The Charlotte Ledger, an e-newsletter with local business-y news and insights for Charlotte, N.C.

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by Tony Mecia

Let’s stipulate that having the FBI, State Bureau of Investigation and state auditor examining your operation puts you in an uncomfortable spot.

That, of course, is where Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools finds itself just weeks after a bombshell memo from the then-superintendent, Crystal Hill, hit the media. It suggested financial and contracting shenanigans surrounding the hiring of a $30,000-a-month politically connected consultant, Raki McGregor, by a law firm CMS had hired without the knowledge of Hill or most of the school board.

The school board fired Hill the following week in a contentious 5-4 vote.

It has been a month since those allegations surfaced. We've learned plenty about the people involved, the contracts they signed and the money that flowed from CMS. But we still don't know enough to answer a basic question: Was this simply a case of sloppy contracting and lax oversight? Or something more troubling?

At this point, there’s no smoking gun … just some smoke.

I’ve been looking into this issue for the last month, along with my Charlotte Ledger colleagues Michelle Crouch and Ashley Fahey. We’ve pored over the available public documents and requested many others, and collectively talked to a couple of dozen people who have expertise in law or contracting or board dynamics or local politics.

But nobody we’ve talked to seems to know exactly how serious the problems are. Many important details are missing, and the key players who could help fill in the blanks aren’t talking.

School board member Stephanie Sneed, who stepped down as board chair but stayed on the board after Hill’s account suggested that she was involved in the questionable contracting, has struck a defiant tone while refusing to provide details that could provide clarity.

“Assumptions and allegations and mischaracterizations have been repeated as facts,” she said at last week’s school board meeting, sounding irritated as she read from a prepared statement. “An investigation is not a finding of wrongdoing. An allegation is not a verdict.”

That is all true. But it’s also true that indignation is not an explanation.

She, McGregor and CMS have offered no public explanations or alternate interpretations of the facts that Hill presented a month ago, which she bolstered with more than 200 pages of records. While lawyers have probably advised them to stay silent amid criminal investigations, they’re taking a beating in the court of public opinion because nobody has advanced an alternate narrative.

Let’s examine some of the most basic questions that remain largely unanswered.

What we know: CMS documents show that on Feb. 4, Poyner Spruill, a well-respected statewide law firm, entered into a contract with CMS to assist with an initiative to build affordable housing for teachers, an issue that is legally tricky. The contract was signed by Sneed, chief financial officer Kelly Kluttz and acting general counsel Anna Hehenberger for CMS and partner Katie Cornetto for Poyner Spruill.

The law firm’s billing records sent to CMS show that Cornetto had conversations that same day with another law firm partner about “potential hiring of consultant for the schools through Poyner Spruill and best means to do so.” Cornetto talked to Sneed that same day, the records show, as well as to a “consultant” who is not named.

On Feb. 6, Cornetto sent a letter to McGregor that confirmed that his company, Qonnect, would perform consulting work in connection with Poyner Spruill’s work with CMS on a $30,000-a-month retainer. It said that McGregor would be paid only if CMS reimbursed Poyner Spruill for his work.

McGregor had previously worked on the affordable housing project for CMS in his time as an adviser to Hill.

Hill said she was unaware that McGregor was hired by the law firm at the time the contract was entered into.

What we don’t know: Nobody has publicly explained why Poyner Spruill decided to hire McGregor, a former Novant Health senior vice president of new business, digital equity and community growth. He had also been an “executive-in-residence” to CMS and a former adviser to Hill until CMS cut off his contracts in 2025. (Hill’s memo said she made that decision after reading a Charlotte Ledger article in July 2025 about McGregor’s political activities.)

McGregor is a well-connected figure who had backed the candidacies of several school board members and donated to local politicians, including Sneed. Until recently, McGregor served as chair of the transportation committee of the influential Black Political Caucus of Charlotte-Mecklenburg. Well-known businessmen Malcomb Coley and Hugh McColl Jr. are listed as advisers to McGregor’s son’s transportation company, and a 2023 Axios Charlotte article said McGregor’s son was a regular driver for Coley and McColl.

Poyner Spruill has not said why it hired McGregor. Sneed has not discussed her involvement.

What we know: The four-page “strategic services agreement” between Poyner Spruill and McGregor was obtained from CMS through a public records request.

It lists Qonnect’s responsibilities on the affordable housing project in general terms and outlines a series of potential tasks that draw heavily on providing advice and making connections. It does not identify specific reports, deadlines or minimum work hours.

Some of the duties include giving advice “regarding political, organizational and regulatory dynamics,” providing “guidance on stakeholder engagement sequencing and tone” and “support in repairing or restructuring opportunities affected by misalignment, timing or perception.” Consulting agreements often use vague language and are structured on a retainer basis, as the tasks can be difficult to determine in advance.

Poyner Spruill’s billing records list Cornetto as having three calls with the consultant in March, totaling three hours, and writing four pieces of correspondence to him that month.

CMS has no records of anything produced by McGregor and his company regarding the affordable housing initiative, the district told The Ledger this month. CMS also has no records of a $220,000 compliance assessment that the district hired Poyner Spruill to conduct starting in June, with McGregor to receive $132,000 of that, in an agreement that was to run through September 2026.

What we don’t know: Poyner Spruill presumably has a better idea of what it received from its work with McGregor, but it has not provided information on his work.

What we know: According to the N.C. State Board of Elections, McGregor donated $500 to Sneed’s reelection campaign in October 2025.

The two also worked together to pitch the Mecklenburg County Sheriff’s Office on a consulting proposal this spring, which the Sheriff’s Office turned down, The Ledger reported last month.

What we don’t know: Were there other business or financial arrangements between Sneed and McGregor? What would she have stood to gain, if anything, from promoting McGregor as a CMS consultant? No evidence has surfaced showing that she personally profited from the contracts.

What we know: In August, CMS finance officials alerted Hill of problems with a Poyner Spruill invoice. Kluttz, the chief financial officer, said she was “unable to locate a contract and an associated purchase order supporting the expenditure.” Sneed had said in an email that she was unaware documentation was missing.

Board members have said they were unaware of the contract and McGregor’s involvement.

CMS policy allows the district to enter into contracts of up to $250,000 without a board vote. The board chair along with finance officials can sign contracts for lower amounts.

A March 4 revision to the Poyner Spruill contract called for it to be extended by 11 months, which means it could have been worth more than that threshold, though the full board appears not to have voted on that or been informed of it. (The relationship was subsequently revised again a few weeks later to encompass the compliance review that was to run for a shorter term, CMS records show.)

In her memo, Hill said she believed that Sneed intentionally circumvented CMS contracting requirements to conceal McGregor’s involvement, though available documents do not establish that Sneed intentionally did so.

Generally, board members’ responsibilities are to manage the superintendent and general counsel and to set policy, not to manage the selection of vendors and become involved in day-to-day operations.

What we don’t know: It’s unclear how or why the Poyner Spruill invoices didn’t follow usual procedures.

The finance department reports to the superintendent, not to the board. The contracts in question originated through the general counsel’s office, which is a separate chain of command to the board that does not involve the superintendent.

To gain some perspective on the investigations, I talked last week with Jonathan Vogel, a Charlotte lawyer and former federal prosecutor who has prosecuted financial fraud cases and has a background in education law.

Vogel, who has no inside knowledge of the situation, said that based on what he has read, the contracting practices sound suspicious. The investigations, he said, are fact-finding exercises.

And whether or not there will be criminal charges depends on the answers to some of the questions above.

If it’s a matter of recommending a friend for a job or overpaying or sloppy paperwork, those are red flags and poor governance that are probably of little interest to law enforcement, he said.

But if it’s a matter of hiring someone unqualified and paying them with taxpayer money for no work, that would look more like a fraudulent scheme that could interest prosecutors.

No evidence has emerged to establish that there was such a plan, but if it does, the most common charge would be wire fraud or mail fraud, which are favored by prosecutors because they are easier to prove than other corruption-related charges.

“It doesn’t require evidence of bribery or a kickback, but it could involve evidence of that,” Vogel said. “It essentially requires evidence of a dishonest scheme of intentionally defrauding someone of money. And we’re not talking about bad contracting practices. We’re talking about someone with the intent to defraud.”

He said investigators would start by talking with people who know details, like Hill. And they would seek documents from CMS, the McGregors and perhaps Poyner Spruill, though he said it can be challenging to receive records from law firms, whose communications with clients are often privileged.

If investigators need to, they can seek bank records to track the flows of money.

“They will follow the facts,” Vogel said. “They will not necessarily go on a fishing expedition, but if they have suspicion that money is going for services that are not being provided and they want to see where that money traveled … then they might issue grand jury subpoenas to the various banks and get those bank records to go through and see.”

But, he said, we might not see a resolution for a while. Investigations like this are document-intensive and typically take at least six to 12 months.

The difference between suspicion and a crime is proof. And we haven’t seen that yet.

Tony Mecia is The Ledger’s executive editor. Reach him at [email protected].

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