A version of the following article appeared in the Monday, November 2, 2026, edition of The Charlotte Ledger, an e-newsletter with local business-y news and insights for Charlotte, N.C.
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Former CMS consultant Raki McGregor defends $30,000-a-month contract in first public comments
Raki McGregor is a former consultant to Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools (Image captured from screenshot of a presentation to the Mecklenburg County Sheriff’s Office)
by Tony Mecia
Raki McGregor, the former consultant to Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools whose $30,000-a-month contract led to investigations of the school district, said in an interview published Sunday that the money was spent to get an affordable housing initiative “over the finish line.”
In his first public comments since news emerged last month that a Raleigh law firm signed him on as a highly paid consultant, with CMS picking up the bill, McGregor told journalist Michael Graff of The Charlotte Optimist that he’s proud of the work he and his wife did to help CMS succeed in the classroom.
“No one has asked me about outcomes,” the publication quoted McGregor as saying last week. “No one has said, ‘What did y’all deliver?’ … What we’re talking about is, ‘is there a conflict of interest?’ … I’m not going to apologize for doing what I think was best for students.”
McGregor had been an adviser to former Superintendent Crystal Hill, paid for by CMS through his wife’s firm as well as through the Charlotte Executive Leadership Council, a group of CEOs and other top leaders of Charlotte-area companies. Hill, though, discontinued his contract in 2025 after learning about his involvement in school board political campaigns and perceived conflicts of interest, since his wife’s educational consulting firm also received CMS contracts.
The Charlotte Optimist article with McGregor’s perspective doesn’t answer all the outstanding questions about CMS. We still don’t know the precise circumstances surrounding law firm Poyner Spruill’s decision to hire him — including who arranged it and why. And we don’t know what precisely he did for that money, though his lawyer told the publication it was akin to “project management,” with McGregor adding: “A lot of this stuff is not tangible. It’s helping people see it through.”
And McGregor declined to comment on some of the most intriguing matters, like whether that arrangement was meant to go around Hill.
But the piece provides a perspective that has been missing from the CMS case and fills in some gaps.
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