Please feel free to use any of these examples if you wish, but PLEASE PLEASE do not say it\u2019s from our school.\u00a0\u00a0 Please don\u2019t list us or even mention [the region of the state the school is in].\u00a0 (We\u2019re the only one [in our area] and I don\u2019t want any attention drawn to us.)\u00a0 We have had to really struggle against the \u201cpowers that be\u201d around here, and at the present time it\u2019s best to just stay low, do our own thing, and continue growing.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n
I’ve heard this from not a few charter school teachers who’ve talked with me.<\/p>\n
\nHi Mr. Berg:<\/p>\n
I am a teacher\/director at a small charter school in [a part of, and town in, Greater Minnesota].<\/p>\n
I grew up [in this region] taught in traditional public high school here, and saw a need for something different in our area.\u00a0 We don\u2019t have any private high schools<\/span> [in this region] , and again, before us, there were no charters, either.\u00a0 Our school is truly, truly public \u2013 our kids range academically just as in our local traditional districts.\u00a0 We know we can\u2019t, nor do we want to, limit enrollment to certain groups of kids.\u00a0 We do have a considerably higher special education student<\/span> percentage and a higher free\/reduced lunch student population than the traditional local districts.\u00a0 We also seem to get some of the \u201creally, really smart\u201d kids, too.\u00a0\u00a0 Overall, we\u2019re just a mix of kids and families who were looking for something different \u2013 for many reasons.\u00a0 We pride ourselves on really trying to meet the needs of the individual kid.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\nThe teacher notes when the school started, and with how many kids; I will redact that to help conceal its identity, but suffice to say that at a time when traditional school districts’ enrollments are stagnang and dropping, the teacher’s charter school is booming.<\/p>\n
\nI have been following your series as you discuss the recent MN2020 report about charter school audit findings.\u00a0 We were listed in the report.<\/p>\n
You said you are researching charters, and I would like to share with you the (4) audit findings we received during [the period covered in the audit].<\/p>\n
Finding #1:\u00a0 Segregation of Duties<\/p>\n
During [the period audited], we had NO staff.\u00a0 No employees.\u00a0 All volunteer board members, start-up director (me) and parents.\u00a0 We had NO payroll.\u00a0 I had another full-time job in a local district (another story) and worked on charter school start-up stuff at night.\u00a0 Yes, it was hard to segregate duties.\u00a0 (To disclose, we did have this same audit finding [the following year] and may still have it in FY09, but we\u2019re getting better.)<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n
This is not at all uncommon among charters; there might be limited segregation of duties, but then there is also extremely limited staff and money<\/em>.<\/p>\n\nFinding #2:\u00a0 Preparation of Financial Statements<\/span><\/p>\nOur auditing firm<\/span> prepared our official financial report.\u00a0 We wrote less than 100 checks and spent less than $44,000 in the entire fiscal year!\u00a0 We had sort of a lame business service provider (another story), and he just let the auditing firm put together the financials.\u00a0 The next year, we put our own together.\u00a0 (We did not have this finding in our FY08 audit.)<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\nBut the MN2020 report treats this as if it’s a big black mark pointing inevitably to embezzlement and the defrauding of taxpayers.<\/p>\n
\nFinding #3:\u00a0 Payment of Invoices<\/p>\n
This finding occurred because we paid some bills more than 45 days after we received the invoice.\u00a0 Again, we had no paid staff; I was teaching full time in another district and doing this part-time at night.\u00a0 I realize it\u2019s important to pay bills, which we did, but a few went more than 45 days.\u00a0 We did pay them all, and all of our vendors still work with us.\u00a0 (We did not have this finding in our FY08 audit.)<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n
And if we closed down every non-profit that takes tax money and then pays a few bills late, we wouldn’t have many non-profits, would we?<\/p>\n
\nFinding #4:\u00a0 Claims declaration\u00a0 (this is the most dumb)<\/p>\n
Actual audit wording, \u201cMinnesota Statute 471.6161 requires that each person claiming payment from the Academy make the following written declaration:\u00a0 \u201cI declare under penalties of law that this account claim\u00a0 or demand is just and correct and that no part of it has been paid.\u201d\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Our last audit finding was because we didn\u2019t stamp the back of our checks with that statement.\u00a0\u00a0 Who knew?\u00a0\u00a0 After that, we got a stamper.\u00a0 (And, we did not have this finding in our FY08 audit.)<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n
Whew.\u00a0 I’m amazed the FBI hasn’t raided the place.<\/p>\n
One of our [findings for one of the years] was that we didn\u2019t have proper collateral on our money in the bank.\u00a0 None of us have ever had over $100,000 in the bank, not even for one day \u2026.\u00a0\u00a0 We just didn\u2019t know we had to fill out anything if our school bank account ever held more than $100,000 (which, 95% of the time it doesn\u2019t anyway \u2026.)\u00a0\u00a0 Our auditor even told me that was more of an error by the local bank than by us.\u00a0 Anyways, now we have more than the FDIC insurance \u2013 we had to fill out some paperwork.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
And that’s it.\u00a0 Four errors that don’t even rise to the level of “niggling” in the grand scheme of things.<\/p>\n
The teacher concludes:<\/p>\n
\n\n
So those are the \u201cbig\u201d findings we had in FY07…Yes, we have audit findings.\u00a0 Yes, we learn from them.\u00a0 No, no one is stealing money or being bad.\u00a0 I just feel we didn\u2019t all deserve to be labeled as such.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n
I’d love to hear from more charter school people who’ve run afoul of MN2020.\u00a0 Write me at “feedbackinthedark@yahoo.com”.
\nStill on tap for this series; a conversation with the State Auditor, some questions for MN2020, and some conclusions.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I’m getting a few other responses to MN2020’s hatchet job on charter schools; I’ll have some results tomorrow. But in the meantime, I got this email from a charter school director and teacher from Greater Minnesota who’s been reading this series.\u00a0 The teacher notes: It\u2019s weird that I\u2019m sending you this email, because most of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10,78],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4972","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-education","category-school-choice"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4972","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4972"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4972\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4972"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4972"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4972"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}