Baton Rouge – The operators of the Baker Charter School Impact have poorly managed nearly 2.5 million dollars of funds reserved to educate children, including hundreds of thousands of dollars spent for personal expenses for the Director General of the ‘School, according to a report published Monday by the Legislative Assembly of Louisiana, the office of the auditor examined by the investigation unit.
The results, which have been given to prosecutors of states and federals, follow a May 2024 raid at school, which is exploited by explosion education. The non -profit organization, which has provided educational services in the parish of East Baton Rouge since 2009, has a charter that is expected to expire on June 30.
An audit of 2023 has shown that the school had an annual budget worth around $ 8 million, with approximately $ 7 million from the financing of states and federal states. The amount that allegedly poorly managed is almost a third of the annual spending of the school.
The school has just over 400 students from kindergarten to the 8th year.
The audit, led in response to the complaints that the auditor’s office had received, alleges that the CEO of the school, Chakesha Scott, diverted money to the Charter Friends of Impact school, where it is also CEO. In addition to using money from the FICS account, listeners say that she used school funds to pay the trips made by herself and her family, rent or buy vehicles for personal use, Refund the credit card costs that seemed to be of a personal and paid nature for improvements in a building, the school did not have.
In its response to the audit, the school said that the information has been selected in the cherry and “reflect a fundamental misunderstanding of the relationship” among the different entities associated with the school. “Dr. Scott also notes that if there were errors inadvertently in business formalities or registers holding, these errors can be corrected,” said the answer.
The complete audit report, at 173 pages, is available here. Its main conclusions:
-The CEO of explosion education diverted $ 1,504,268 to a bank account for the Charter Friends of Impact school;
-The CEO diverted an additional $ 171,659 to a third party on behalf of the FICS and used money on personal expenses;
-The CEO has diverted at least $ 221,506 in costs of students, parents and others to fics and non -school accounts;
-The CEO spent $ 130,494 on travel for herself, her husband and daughter (going beyond the school trip budget of $ 114,094), including trips to Chicago, Disneyland Paris, Egypt and New York ;
-The CEO spent $ 166,520 on school money on an Acura MDX and a Velar Land Rover that she and a girl used;
-The CEO spent $ 129,493 to improve a building that the school was not owner;
-Adet of the school’s credit card, the CEO spent $ 88,607 on goods and services that seem to be of a personal nature, including payments to an online university, cleaning costs and personal training courses in line.
In addition, listeners also say that she may have used funds to the charter to pay for work at her home, including landscaping and the installation of a swimming pool in the field.
In total, the listeners have found just over $ 2.5 million in charter school funds were poorly managed or diverted from their objective.
Part of the money was diverted to the fics, for example, finally benefited Scott and a girl. Fics Records showed that Scott took $ 42,371 on the same day as she and her daughter bought a second -hand Tesla for the same amount.
“Copies of this report were given to the District Prosecutor for the 19th Louisiana’s judicial district, the United States prosecutor for the average district of Louisiana, and others as required by the law,” wrote the auditor Legislative Mike Waguespack during the audit summary. Scott and others may have violated several federal and federal laws, the audit said.
An fic lawyer told the auditor’s office last month that the listener had no authority. He refused to respond to the audit and opposed his inclusion. “FOCICES requests that any reference be deleted from the audit report,” wrote Laywer J. Lane Ewing Jr.
In the middle of the audit process, the explosion education began to request a charter renewal in August, but in December, the State Board of Elementary and Secondary Education did not include the school with an impact charter On a list of school renewal schools. The heads of school continued to be added to the agenda, but the judge rejected the trial and ordered the school to pay legal proceedings.
A month later, Bese approved the school to Charter for renewal With stipulations that there may be special conditions depending on the results of the investigation audit.