Report 2022-110R Recommendations
When an audit is completed and a report is issued, auditees must provide the State Auditor with information regarding their progress in implementing recommendations from our reports at three intervals from the release of the report: 60 days, six months, and one year. Additionally, Senate Bill 1452 (Chapter 452, Statutes of 2006), requires auditees who have not implemented recommendations after one year, to report to us and to the Legislature why they have not implemented them or to state when they intend to implement them. Below, is a listing of each recommendation the State Auditor made in the report referenced and a link to the most recent response from the auditee addressing their progress in implementing the recommendation and the State Auditor's assessment of auditee's response based on our review of the supporting documentation.
Recommendations in Report 2022-110R: Charter School Facility Grant Program and Conduit Financing Program: The Programs Are Generally Achieving Their Purpose of Increasing Charter Schools' Access to Facility Funding (Release Date: February 2023)
| Recommendations to Legislature | ||
|---|---|---|
| Number | Recommendation | Status |
| 1 | To ensure that students from low-income areas receive the maximum benefit from the Facility Grant Program, the Legislature should amend state law to define the admissions priority that charter schools must give students who either attend the nearest local public elementary school or reside in that public school's attendance area. |
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| 2 | To mitigate the negative impact that charter school closures may have on students' education, the Legislature should amend state law to give the Office of the Attorney General the authority to approve, conditionally approve, or deny the sale or lease of a charter school facility if the charter school benefited significantly from Facility Grant Program funds and paid rent to a closely associated entity. To facilitate this authority, the law should include a means by which the Attorney General would receive notification about such sale or lease agreements. For example, the Legislature could require the organization that owns the facility to notify the Attorney General. |
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| 3 | To enable CSFA to provide increased oversight of charter schools that received Facility Grant Program funds, the Legislature should clearly define the organizational types of charter schools and require charter schools to respond to the California Department of Education's annual survey. |
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| Recommendations to Treasurer, State | ||
|---|---|---|
| Number | Recommendation | Status |
| 4 | To better identify potential conflicts of interest involving the use of Facility Grant Program funding, CSFA should amend the definition of a related party in its regulations to include nonprofit CMOs and the subsidiaries of nonprofit charter schools and CMOs. In addition, CSFA should work with the Fair Political Practices Commission to ensure that its regulations address all conflict-of-interest laws, including Government Code section 1090 and the Political Reform Act of 1974. |
Partially Implemented |
| 5 | To ensure that charter schools are appropriately disclosing information about related parties as part of the Facility Grant Program application process, CSFA should annually review a sample of applications to determine whether charter schools correctly reported that their lessors were not related. |
Pending |
| 6 | To ensure that applicants meet a key program eligibility requirement, CSFA should require Facility Grant Program applicants to provide documentation that they are not operating as or by a for-profit organization. It should also adopt and begin following procedures to verify an applicant's compliance with this requirement. |
Fully Implemented |