Tell Auditor General DeFoor to Audit Pennsylvania's Cyber Charter Schools
Auditor General, Timothy DeFoor
Cyber charter schools receive more than $1 billion in tax-funded tuition payments from Pennsylvanians each year, yet most cyber charter schools have never been audited or were last audited many years ago.
With no state oversight, the opportunities for waste, fraud, and abuse are staggering.
- Reporting in the Times-Tribune documented that one cyber charter school spent $1000 per student on advertising in 2020 while other cyber charters spent taxpayer money to purchase cell phones and Target gift cards for students and to provide families with cash payments.
- Right to Know requests revealed that cyber charters spent $35 million on advertising during the 2019-2020 and 2020-2021 school years.
- And recently we learned that Pennsylvania's largest cyber charter is sending families$150 cash payments and providing $450 per student in reimbursements for their leisure activities and trips in addition to paying for family parties at Dave and Busters and other arcades and restaurants.
Education Voters has brought this questionable spending of tax dollars by cyber charter schools to the attention of Pennsylvania's Auditor General, Timothy DeFoor. We requested that he open audits of cyber charter schools, starting with the school that has the largest budget.
However, in a letter dated June 1, 2022, the office of the Auditor General's office informed Education Voters that due to limited staff resources, the office would not be opening an audit into Commonwealth Charter Academy or any other cyber charter school.
Simply put, the Auditor General’s office is refusing to do its duty as state fiscal watchdog. And not only has the office refused to conduct audits of the state’s 14 cyber charter schools, but the Auditor General himself announced earlier this year that he intends to shut down the Bureau of School Audits entirely.
In the meantime, the Auditor General opened audits into the fund balances of 14 school districts. Surely a cyber charter school spending public dollars on cash payments to students' families and parties at Dave and Busters should be at least as high of a priority for his office as looking at the fund balances of school districts.
The state is flush with cash. Our state surplus is currently in the billions, there’s still $2 billion in remaining federal ARP dollars, and we have a never-before-seen rainy day fund of nearly $3 billion. It is improbable that the resources do not exist for the Auditor General to conduct these audits.
Sponsored by
To:
Auditor General, Timothy DeFoor
From:
[Your Name]
We are writing to call on you to immediately lay out a calendar to audit Pennsylvania's cyber charter schools, prioritizing cyber charter schools with the largest budgets.
Cyber charter schools receive more than $1 billion in tax-funded tuition payments from Pennsylvanians each year, yet most cyber charter schools have never been audited or were last audited many years ago.
With no state oversight, the opportunities for waste, fraud, and abuse are staggering.
Reporting in the Times-Tribune documented that one cyber charter school spent $1000 per student on advertising in 2020 while other cyber charters spent taxpayer money to purchase cell phones and Target gift cards for students and to provide families with cash payments.
Right to Know requests revealed that cyber charters spent $35 million on advertising during the 2019-2020 and 2020-2021 school years.
And recently we learned that Pennsylvania's largest cyber charter is sending families $150 cash payments and providing $450 per student in reimbursements for their leisure activities and trips in addition to paying for family parties at Dave and Busters and other arcades and restaurants.
Your office recently opened audits into the fund balances of 14 school districts. Surely a cyber charter school spending public dollars on cash payments to families and meals and games at arcades should be at least as high of a priority for your office as looking at the fund balances of school districts.
The state is flush with cash. Our state surplus is currently in the billions, there’s still $2 billion in remaining federal ARP dollars, and we have a never-before-seen rainy day fund of nearly $3 billion. It is improbable that the resources do not exist for your office to conduct these audits.
We rely on the Auditor General’s office to fight against waste, fraud and abuse of taxpayer funding and to ensure that precious school tax dollars are being invested wisely into educating our public school students.
Please make auditing cyber charter schools a priority for your administration.