Florida Charter School Audits, Investigations, and Compliance

Once your charter school is up and running, you will realize that there are many requirements you have to comply with: federal, state, and local. It is of course always best to have good processes, procedures, and people in place to make sure that you are doing a good job of both complying and documenting compliance on the front end. We can help advise on setting up good processes for compliance review. However, whether or not you have good processes in place, it is likely that your charter will be subject to audits and reviews. In some cases these will be on a regular basis, and in other cases they will be more likely if there is a complaint.

If an audit or investigation has begun, or you expect one, call us at 850-567-8445 or fill in the message form on this page.

Reviews Every Charter School Should Expect

• An annual financial audit by an independent certified public accountant, and monthly financial statements to the sponsor (quarterly for a high-performing charter school)
• The sponsor’s monitoring of your progress toward the goals in your charter, using the state’s standard monitoring tool
• Required postings on the school’s website, including the annual audit
• An expedited review if the school misses an audit or a required report, or shows a deteriorating financial condition, followed by a corrective action plan due within 30 business days
• Checks that teachers are certified as the law requires, and that employees and governing board members have been background screened

Sources: sections 1002.33(5)(b), (9), and (12) and 1002.345, Florida Statutes.

Audits and investigations should always be taken seriously. They may cover many different areas of your operations, ranging from FTE audits to audits of how you have spent federal grants. There may be investigations about whether you are in compliance in the education you are providing your special needs students, audits of whether your teachers are appropriately assigned and certified, investigations triggered by complaints to the Office for Civil Rights (OCR) or to an inspector general, and so on. It is impossible to list every possible kind of audit or investigation, but be forewarned that there are a multitude of possibilities when you are operating a charter school.

What a Sponsor May and May Not Require

The statute also limits the sponsor. A sponsor may not apply its own policies to a charter school unless both agree, and it may not impose reporting requirements beyond the statute’s unless the school has been identified as having a deteriorating financial condition or a financial emergency (section 1002.33(5)(b)). When a review turns into demands the law does not support, the dispute can be taken to mediation and, if necessary, to an administrative law judge; see Contract Disputes & Amendment.

A Reporting Duty That Is Easy to Miss

A charter school must file a complaint with the Department of Education within 30 days after it learns of misconduct by a certified educator that would be grounds for discipline, and must tell the Department immediately if the educator resigns or is terminated before the investigation is finished (section 1012.796(1)(e)).

We can help you prepare for, respond to, and defend your actions in audits and investigations. As we said, these need to be taken seriously, because they can be the basis for serious action against your charter school, up to termination. We encourage you to contact us before a formal audit or investigation has even started if you can, and at a minimum once you become aware of one. This is one of those areas where effort on the front end can often save endless problems and cost on the back end.