Auctioneer Sal Corio, third from right, takes bids yesterday at the Providence offices of the Education Partnership.

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The Providence Journal / Andrew Dickerman

PROVIDENCE –– It’s high noon at the offices of the Education Partnership, and everything must go.

Desks, chairs, computers, file cabinets, Education Partnership golf shirts and coffee mugs, artificial trees, paper shredders, even the framed prints on the walls.

“Here we have a large, wooden executive desk with matching credenza,” booms auctioneer Sal Corio, speaking into an electronic headset attached to a megaphone.

A few dozen bidders crowd into the private office of former Education Partnership president Valerie Forti. Some sit on a red camelback sofa that, like everything else in the office, is for sale.

In a scene reminiscent of the television sitcom The Office, a bidder points to a young woman who works for Corio, seated at Forti’s desk collecting cash and checks, and shouts, “Does the secretary go with it?”

“You couldn’t afford her,” quips Corio, as the woman smiles.

And so it went yesterday as the office furnishings and other physical assets of the defunct Education Partnership were auctioned off for the court-appointed receiver.

The nonprofit advocacy group, citing financial woes, filed for receivership in June, leaving behind tangled finances and questions about missing funds that a forensic auditor is now trying to sort out.

With several hundred thousand dollars apparently missing from a scholarship fund for Rhode Island college students, and a $300,000 line of credit owed to Sovereign Bank, yesterday’s auction will do little to satisfy the organization’s long list of creditors, including unpaid teachers from Providence after-school programs.

Although final figures were not available, and several computers went unsold and will be auctioned later, the court-appointed receiver told a judge last month that the auction was expected to gross about $10,500.

For about two hours at midday yesterday, the suite of offices, spread over two levels of an office building at 345 South Main St., were filled with reporters and would-be buyers with clipboards and an appraising eye for the merchandise. Some were small businessmen looking for deals on office furniture and supplies, from printer cartridges to paper cutters. Others buy for resale.

“It was a nice crowd, but the sale of office furniture and equipment is down,” said Corio, proprietor of the S.J. Corio Co. “There are a lot of empty offices around the city.”

According to the landlord, who is looking for a new tenant, the Education Partnership spent more than $100,000 remodeling the offices about five years ago. But yesterday, sleek desks, plush chairs, gleaming conference tables and other furniture went for a pittance.

The highest single item sold was Forte’s desk and credenza, an impressive blond-wood piece of furniture with a black accent stripe. The contents of the drawers –– some cleaning supplies and knives –– were included.

“Five hundred? Who will give me five hundred?” Corio began.

“One hundred,” countered Michael Stansfield, a jewelry company owner.

“Oh no,” said Corio. “How about $350 to get started?”

“One-fifty,” offered Stansfield.

“Nope. Two hundred? C’mon people, this is probably a $1,000 set-up.”

Finally, the bidding began inching up, with Stansfield bidding against Edward Soares, a City of Pawtucket planning official who was looking for deals to replace antiquated city furniture.

“C’mon, this could be the mayor’s set-up,” joked Corio, moments before Soares bid $300.

Stansfield, owner of Botique Creations, which is moving from Cumberland to Johnston, topped that with $325, winning the desk and credenza. But moments later, worried that it wouldn’t fit in his new office, Stansfield negotiated a swap with Soares, who had bought a more modest wooden desk in a nearby office for $125. So Forti’s desk will go to Pawtucket, where she has critiqued the city’s teachers’ contract, where it will probably be used by Soares or his boss, planning director Michael Cassidy.

A last-minute addition to the auction was the red-print fabric camelback couch in Forti’s office. Corio said they initially hesitated to sell it, uncertain if it belonged to Forti personally or to the Education Partnership. If it turns out that it did belong to her, he said, she could theoretically be reimbursed for the purchase price at auction, which was $90.

In a bookcase outside Forti’s office sat a wire basket containing stacks of records documenting campaign contributions to Rhode Island politicians over the years. There were dozens of invitations to political fundraisers, several with handwritten notations from Forti and others.

Attached to a handful of invitations to fundraisers by state legislators was a handwritten note from Forti to an aide, asking, “Are they sponsoring legislation that we like?”

The records conjured a better time, when Forti’s business-backed organization was in the forefront of the education reform debate in Rhode Island and she attended a dessert reception for Providence Mayor David N. Cicilline and received a handwritten thank-you note regarding her educational views from Lt. Gov. Elizabeth Roberts, who was then a state senator.

They also hint at her crowded schedule. “In New York,” she writes on one fundraising invitation, explaining why she can’t attend. In another instance, a fundraiser for state Rep. Thomas Slater, she writes an associate on the letterhead of the Fairmont Hotel (the stationery doesn’t reveal the location), inviting the associate to attend in her absence.

“If you can go,” she writes, “have [a co-worker] give you one of my checks made out for $50 and take that. If you cannot go, I will just send it with a note.

“Val.”

Forti did not return a call seeking comment. Her lawyer has instructed her not to talk to the media about the demise of the Education Partnership.

mstanton@projo.com