Can NC charter school pay stay secret?
StudentFirst Academy, a charter school that opened in west Charlotte, has faced questions over pay. The former top administrators were paid more than the initial budget included.
North Carolina charter schools don’t have to disclose employee salaries like other public schools do, even though they receive hundreds of millions of dollars in public money, state education officials said this week.
But a lawyer for the General Assembly says charter schools are required to reveal what employees earn. In fact, they have less legal privacy than school districts, said special counsel Gerry Cohen.
“On its face all their personnel records would be public unless they show an applicable statute that says the record is not public,” said Cohen, who spent three decades in charge of drafting legislation. Lawyers for the N.C. Press Association and Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools agree.
The debate comes as public investment in charter schools and the number of children