Success Academy Charter Schools and its founder and CEO, Eva Moskowitz, find themselves in hot water after a recent audit by New York City Comptroller Scott Stringer.
Stringer’s audit found that the Success Academy overcharged the Department of Education for special education services, was noncompliant with their own fiscal controls over credit card spending, made administrative costs appear lower to public and oversight agencies while making in-class expenditures appear higher and double dipped in payments from Success Academy schools to the Success Academy management “network.”
Stringer called out Success Academy for disobeying the rules.
“Any entity receiving taxpayer dollars must operate efficiently and follow the rules,” said Stringer in a statement. “We found irregularities in this audit of Success Academy that raise serious concerns. Billing the DOE for special education services without records to verify that they were provided, financial reports that made administrative costs seem lower than they actually were, ineffective fiscal controls over credit card and other spending, missing loan agreements for millions of dollars—all were findings uncovered by this audit.”
According to Stringer’s audit, Success Academy reported inconsistent versions of how much of its management fee went to educating students. Sometimes, it was reported as none. Sometimes, it was half. Sometimes, it was 92 percent. In Fiscal Years 2013 and 2014, the charter school network reported 100 percent of its management fee as “supporting services expenses,” even though financial statements revealed that a little more than 19 percent went to such services.
“We found situations in which Success Academy was violating its own standards, or those of oversight agencies,” said Stringer. “We hope Success Academy will embrace our recommendations and adjust its practices. This isn’t about district versus charter schools—it’s about protecting taxpayer dollars and following the rules.”
American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten, took to Twitter to ask, “Will ‘accountability’ crowd come down on Success Academy after NYC Comptroller finds ‘serious concerns’ in audit?”
A United Federation of Teachers representative told the AmNews that union officials are currently reviewing the audit. The audit also revealed that Success Academy schools failed to document or obtain the required approvals for loan agreements totaling more than $8 million. Success Academy school borrowed $8.5 million from the Network to finance operations at 15 schools.. Out of that money, Success Academy failed to record written loan agreements for $2.7 million of those funds.
Billy Easton, executive director of the Alliance for Quality Education, believes that this failure is just the beginning with Success Academy.
These findings just scratch the surface,” said Easton in a statement. “The Comptroller’s audit only looked in-depth at one school. Just last week, Success Academy spent $68 million to purchase luxury office space for its Network. New York State should stop any expansion of Success Academy until it fully complies with the audit recommendations. Millions in public dollars are being pumped into privately run Success Academy schools and their management network.
“New York State should not continue to reward Success Academy for behaving as if they are above the law,” Easton concluded.
Hazel N. Dukes, president of the NAACP New York State Conference, said, “I applaud Comptroller Stringer in answering many of the questions that the NAACP, state and national have asked on transparency of charter school procedures. That’s the reason the NAACP called for the moratorium on charter schools, so that we can get facts on their operations. The findings are not what we thought, but are factual.”
Stringer’s audit also found that Success Academy billed the DOE for more than $50,000 for special education services that records show were not provided. In six of the 21 sampled special education students at Success’ Harlem 3 School (28.6 percent), the audit found billing for a greater level or longer duration of services than were actually provided to the students.
Another review of Individualized Education Programs and Success Academy records by the city comptroller’s office found that the school failed to provide certain mandated special education services to 47.6 percent of the sampled students (10 of the 21 sampled students).
When the AmNews contacted the Department of Education about the audits, a spokeswoman wanted the public to know that they’re making sure students with disabilities are served.
“We have protocols in place for reviewing and processing reimbursement requests submitted by charter schools, and are dedicated to ensuring students with disabilities have access to the supports they need,” said the DOE spokeswoman.
Success Academy spokespeople did not respond to requests for comment.
