Dive Brief:
- A total of 40 Ohio charters have been found to have “misspent” a total of $6 million dollars from taxpayers, a new series of audits from 2008-14 now shows.
- “A majority of the unresolved findings for recovery are against individuals who operated or worked at the schools, and many of these schools are now closed,” the report says, with one former school treasurer in particular blamed for “misspending” $2.1 million — $500,000 of which he personally embezzled, according to the Columbus Dispatch.
- The findings were undertaken in an attempt to satisfy a request from the U.S. Department of Education, which previously granted $71 million dollars to the state but has now placed stricter guidelines on how and when the award can be used.
Dive Insight:
Right now, it’s unclear what impact the new findings might have on the $71 million dollar federal grant that was previously awarded to the state. Previously, the state admitted to lax oversight of its charter schools, and the state’s school choice director was forced to resign after a high-profile grade-scrubbing scandal. Yet the soap opera didn’t stop there. As investigations into alleged fraud began, the Ohio state auditor decided against investigating charter data omissions in order to focus on misspending allegations instead.
The federal government’s review of Ohio's original application for the $71 million dollar grant, which was written by the charter leader who resigned, is ongoing. Two federal bills have also been proposed in order to improve oversight for charters.