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Prosecutor awaits documents regarding conversion-schools case
LIBERTY
The Trumbull County Prosecutor’s office says it does not yet have all it needs to decide whether it will pursue recovering $278,000 unaccounted for in audits of two suspended conversion schools.
In May, the Ohio auditor’s office announced the findings for recovery in five audits of the schools, LEAD and LEARN, which were sponsored by Liberty Local School District from 2009 to 2011.
Liberty Early Academic Resource Nest, or LEARN, and Liberty Exemplary Academic Design, or LEAD, were suspended in 2011. They were similar to charter schools with their own governing boards, but operated within district buildings.
The school board in place at the time believed the district would get double per-pupil state funding for the schools, but that did not happen. The district stopped sponsoring the schools in 2011 and shortly thereafter went into state fiscal emergency. It is set to be released soon from that status.
LEAD and LEARN did not close. The Portage County Educational Services Center became their sponsor, but shortly after doing so, the center suspended their operations. They remain suspended.
Despite the schools’ status, it is possible to pursue the findings of recovery.
One of the findings, $169,590, is against the school district and its treasurer at the time, Tracey Obermiyer, jointly and severally in favor of LEARN. The findings are over a lack of documentation for payments LEARN made to the district.
Another is for $26,906 against the district in favor of LEARN.
A finding against LEARN totaled $68,131. Findings against LEAD included $9,951 and $2,247 in improperly documented checks and debit card expenditures.
The state auditor’s office turned its findings over to the Trumbull County Prosecutor’s office, said Carrie Bartunek, auditors’ spokeswoman.
The prosecutor has 120 days to decide whether to act on the case, she said.
Assistant Prosecutor Bill Danso said their office is still waiting on documents from the state.
“They sent some preliminary things over, but there’s more going on with the state,” he said. “It’s still in some investigatory status.”
John Charlton, associate director of communications for the Ohio Department of Education, said that if the money is recovered for LEARN, it will be sent to its present sponsor, the Portage County Educational Services Center. The PCESC will have to use the money to pay off the schools’ retirement system, pay any outstanding back wages and then pay any private creditors still owed money. After that, he said, any money left over has be turned in to the state, which sends it back to the districts where the schools’ students came from.
“To the best of my knowledge, all the students were from Liberty,” said Liberty Schools Superintendent Stan Watson.
Charlton said that LEAD and LEARN would be responsible for paying the money back, not their sponsor, which would have been Liberty.
If they have no assets and cannot pay the money back, then it would not be paid back, he said.
“Nobody pays the money back,” he said. “It’s like any business that goes defunct.”