Charter school at risk of being shut down over missing records

The school can’t be audited because of the missing documents.

COLUMBUS (AP) — Missing financial records mean a Columbus charter school cannot be audited, and it has been ordered to produce the records within 90 days in the first test of a law intended to tighten oversight of charter schools, the state auditor said Monday.

The Montessori Renaissance Experience school is missing or has incomplete financial records, Auditor Mary Taylor said. The school’s sponsor, Kids Count of Dayton Inc., must provide Taylor with a plan to recover the records necessary to conduct an audit, Taylor said.

A phone number for Kids Count could not be found in the Dayton area. A message seeking comment was left at the school.

Taylor said Monday that, if the records are not brought up to auditable condition within 90 days, the school will lose its state funding until the records are complete.

“This is the first situation where the new law has applied. The consequences are pretty severe,” she said.

Charter schools are funded by the state but are allowed to mostly set their own rules of operation. The two-year budget bill passed last year set penalties for charter schools that fail to produce financial documents, including closure until an audit is possible.

Kids Count is required within 45 days to provide Taylor with a written plan outlining what it is doing to provide the records necessary for an audit. They also are prohibited from opening more charter schools while Montessori Renaissance is unauditable.

“We don’t have those financial statements. We don’t have a starting point,” Taylor said. “We sent a letter to the sponsor of the school and informed them, their records through June 30, we could not audit them.”

Twenty-two charter schools are being investigated for inadequate record-keeping, Taylor spokeswoman Emily Frazee said. Some of those schools have turned over records but their cases remain open, Frazee said. Four public school systems have been determined to be unauditable, and statewide, 62 entities that use public money are unauditable, she said.

Taylor suggested that charter schools send financial officers to one of her seminars on handling finances. Last year, her office trained 270 people associated with charter schools in financial and accounting practices. She plans another series of workshops this year, she said.