California Foolishly Trusts Charters to Hire Their Own Auditors
Will Huntsberry of the San Diego Union-Tribune has covered the scandals blighting California’s Charter Industry, especially the A3 online scandal, the largest in American history.
In this article, he goes straight to the heart of the scandals: the flawed audit process.
California lawmakers created a system that places just one process at the forefront of detecting fraud and mismanagement in the state’s schools: a yearly audit, conducted by a “state-approved,” “independent” auditor, according to the Department of Education.
But these auditors are not independent, in so much as they are hired and fired at will by the schools they are auditing. The term state-approved is also something of a misnomer. To qualify as an approved firm, the State Controller’s Office must only verify that the potential auditors are accountants in good standing with the California Board of Accountancy.
No special training or vetting required.
The audits themselves are also not designed to dig deeply into a school’s finances, according to transcripts from a grand jury proceeding into an alleged $80 million CONTINUE READING: California Foolishly Trusts Charters to Hire Their Own Auditors | Diane Ravitch's blog
