David Sokola to Mike Matthews

Yesterday at 2:24pm
Actually Mike, the bill was read out of committee and on to the Ready List before we
went to the
Kim Casey Williams, Laura Nash and 2 others like this.
Comments

Mike Matthews Senator: Thank you for the comment and I genuinely appreciate the
dialogue.
1) Why did you file this bill? What was the purpose for you filing this bill considering
Kim's has been in existence since last year?
2) With due respect, just because Kim's bill is on the ready list, doesn't mean it will
appear on an ACTUAL agenda prior to your bill.
3) Auditor's office has gone on the record that your bill does nothing when
compared to Kim's. So, again, what does your bill do to ENSURE that charters fall
under the office of the state auditor?
4) Your colleagues are stating off the record that this bill was specifically filed to
torpedo Kim's bill.
5) I've heard from multiple sources that the director of the DCSN was silent during
the education committee meeting last week when discussing Kim's bill, something
we know she's VEHEMENTLY against. Why? Because she probably knows your bill
will go through first once it leaves the education committee this coming week and
Rep. Earl Jaques will then ram it through the House quickly so her fears have been
allayed.
4) Again, what will your bill ACTUALLY do? If we are all getting worried over nothing,
then why didn't you just sign on to Kim's bill?
Let's continue the conversation here. I think it's totally healthy!

Matthew Lindell Stinks of the Delaware Way...

John Kowalko III 10 hours and no response?

Eve Buckley HB 186 is not anti-charter. It is pro-taxpayer. Any member of the DE

legislature who supports taxpayers has no reason to oppose HB 186. Charter school
autonomy does not extend to embezzlement.

Jill Shilling The problem is there are too many legislators that simply just don't
support taxpayers, they only serve their own interests.

Susan Williams That's why we have to publish how they vote when it comes time for
their reelections. And share the information with as many people in their districts as
possible. Susan Meany Williams

Kim Casey Williams HB 186 will keep the funds in the charter schools, where it
belongs helping students and teachers, not in one person's wallet.

Jill Shilling I agree that HB186 is absolutely needed and I hope it doesn't get caught
up in political games by politicians serving their own special interest groups like
other bills often do in Delaware.

John M. Young Just like the back door cabal against HB50

David Sokola Currently, auditing a regular Public or Vocational School district is

listed under 1504 of Title 14. Audits of Charter Schools is under 513 of Title 14. My
bill specifically adds "and the boards of education of Charter Schools created under
chaper 5 of this title." after "the boards of education of the school districts."
Everything else in my proposal would only affect Charters by putting very specific
requirements with respect to quality, standards and experience of the entities doing
the audits of Charter Schools.

Mike Matthews Does your bill require all charters to submit to an annual audit by the state
auditor?

David Sokola When the Charter network initially expressed concern about the bill,
my response was to say, can you come up with an alternative to ensure that we
would not have some of the financial issues that have be recently occurring as a
result of poor financial practices by some charter schools. They agreed that there
are problems, and suggested that rather than add costs to all charters, including
those that are consistently performing well and having no financial problems, we
should focus on the quality of the audit in the first place. I thought the idea made
sense and agreed to make an alternative proposal. I was not able to attempt to
amend Kim's bill as the title was too narrow to allow all of the elements proposed in
SB171. HB186 was heard in committee on the 2nd non-special session legislative
day after it was placed in my committee. Auditing is becoming very specialized, and
many state agencies are actually audited outside the specific jurisdiction of the
auditor's office, however they are filed with the office of the auditor of accounts.

John M. Young Senator Sokola says "poor financial practices" everyone else? "Theft"

Mike Matthews Senator, again thank you for participating in the dialogue. However,
by your logic, all school districts that have had good audits in recent years should
no longer have to submit to the state auditor. Shouldn't it be considered best
practice that all public schools be they traditional, charter, for Vo-tech should all
submit to the state auditor? it's called budgeting. All school districts have to budget
for the audit. Why shouldn't charter school?

David Sokola Their audits are, and should be submitted to the State Auditor. They
should also be high quality audits in the first place, by top notch entities who have
experience in education. Random post audits should probably also be a tool in the
box that can be judiciously used. I will remind you that the largest bail out relating
to education was of the Christina School district just a little over a decade ago. The
irregularities were found in an audit that was done at the request of Dr. Lowery
when she was interviewing to become the district Chief. The State system in place
did not uncover the problems. The language in 2906 relating to post audits of school
districts does not include the language "of all financial transactions", which is in
HB186. This language could be interpreted many ways, including some that could
extend well beyond "public funds" that have been used by the charter.

Eve Buckley It is worth noting here that (in my understanding) the financial
problems of the Christina district a decade ago, under Super. Joey Wise, were a
matter of overspending (and poor guidance from the district's CFO at that time)
rather than the corrupt misdirection of public funds for personal use that we have
witnessed lately at several DE charters. Both should absolutely be avoided, and the
same safeguards would presumably guard against both criminal embezzlement and
poor financial decision-making. But there is a mistaken impression in my community
that Wise personally stole those taxpayer $ millions, which I believe is untrue.

John Kowalko III Christina School District was not involved in any criminal accounting
practices and absolutely no money was stolen. (Not to mention that CSD is by far
the largest district in the state.) The charter schools that have recently closed were
dealing with criminal theft of taxpayer money. To even make the comparison to CSD
and these criminal actions by the charter school leaders is disingenuous at best.

Mike Matthews Good points, John and Eve. Monies weren't STOLEN by Christina.
They recklessly spent the monies on units they didn't earn. But even that money at
least went towards salaries of human beings. Not toward ridiculous purchases of
concert tickets and car payments on school credit cards.

John Kowalko III Mike, I don't even think the word "recklessly" is accurate. As I
understand it from closely following the issue at the time, the issue with CSD was
basically putting money into the wrong boxes on the financial sheets, and Wagner
made this into a witch hunt to grind his own personal axe, which continues to
benefit those who like to dishonestly exploit the issue, such as Senator Sokola.

Eve Buckley Yes, John--I have also been told, by people who followed this issue
closely at the time, that Wise and his CFO essentially over-invested in student
services for CSD kids and were tripped up by the Byzantine complexity of DE district
school funding (a complexity not suffered by DE charters, and that should be
reduced for all our public schools). These were professional errors that ended up
being costly for taxpayers. But the intentions underlying them are not comparable
to the Family Foundations shenanigans, which I am certain Sen. Sokola understands.
It is truly unfortunate that our public officials did not respond to CSD's errors by
eliminating some of the needless complexity of DE's school funding policies-complexities that DO NOT exist for charters.

Connie Merlet That's right, Eve. Whatever blame can be laid at the feet of Christina in the Wise
and immediately post- Wise era, NO one can say that the money "overspent" did not go to
children. And test scores in those years are proof of that. After the so- called bail out (Christina
was given a loan that was paid back before it was due) Christina's children were hurt by the
stringent measures imposed by the state and the cost of the audit. And Christina has never
recovered.

Kim Casey Williams The Auditor of Accounts has gone on record during the House
Education Committee meeting, telling House member that charters having their
audits done through the Auditor's Office could cost charters less money. What about
all the mismanaged or stolen taxpayer dollars that did not make it into the charter
classrooms, are you concerned about those funds or just concerned about whether
or not Delaware Charter Schools Network or their lobbyist are happy with the audit
bill?

Kim Casey Williams http://auditor.delaware.gov/.../Academy%20of%20Dover...

Kim Casey Williams Above is the Auditor of Accounts report on Academy of Dover
Post

Kim Casey Williams There are 19 schools districts in Delaware with hundreds of
schools within those districts serving over 100,000 students and there are 25

charters serving over 12,000 students and millions of dollars gone missing or spent
on personal purchases over the last three years and you continue to focus on
something that happened with the Christina School district a decade ago--you are
deflecting the current issue that there is money missing and no accountability.
Allowing charter schools to have control over their financial accountability is biased.
Shouldn't we be focused on our constituents' best interest?
Tara Mayew Greathouse Kim, you are right on point. Thankful you're a human being
and not a political robot.

David Sokola "Could cost the Charters less money . . ." I'll bet the auditor's office
thought they were saving Christina School district taxpayers some money, too.

Kim Casey Williams The Christina School district did not go out and spend money to
buy personal items- they used their funds that were for specific educational areas
on other educational areas in the district.

David Sokola The financial problems that were found in a high quality audit, were
not evident from the process that was clearly under the jurisdiction of the State
Auditor. The cheapest bid is often not the best process. A high quality audit is a
better tool for finding financial problems regardless of the nature of those problems.
Any criminal activity should be treated as just that, criminal activity. By ensuring
any local education agency is performing a high quality audit, the public interest is
better served.

Kim Casey Williams Academy of Dover auditor did not catch any of their issues for
three years and the auditors they use are from big auditing firms.

Matthew Lindell Using this argument, why can't traditional districts shed
accountability from the state auditor's office and hire our own highly qualified
auditor? After all, charters get state money and traditional districts do as well. What
is good for the goose is good for the gander. In this case, the goose and gander
being charter schools and traditional public schools. I am curious regarding the
following: If it was a Democrat controlling the auditor's office, would you be as
insulting to the ability of the auditor's office to conduct these audits?

Mike Matthews This is not about money at all, Sen. Sokola. It's about transparency.
And let's just be honest here: The charter schools are not interested in transparency.
See: The two-times-killed legislation to record all school board meetings, including
Districts, vo-techs, and charters.

Eve Buckley See also: the zero oversight in pre-lottery admission for highly sought
after charter schools, although that process accounts for the majority of admissions.
(Siblings? Maybe. Children of valuable business associates? Maybe--how would
anyone know? No records) See also the carte blanche allowed to CSW in using the
interview black box to adjust admissions. Lots of opacity surrounding these publicly
funded entities that provides opportunities for malfeasance, but no political will to
enforce oversight.

Natalie Alvini Ganc I keep telling people about how the heads of school at FFA spent
the money on massages, fruit leather snacks, Alicia Keys and John Legend concerts,
trips across the country, Mercedes Benz car payments, personal home theater
systems, and 76ers games. YET, their teachers NEVER saw even a slight raise!!!
Whatever salary they were hired at, they remained at for YEARS. So, someone tell
me WHERE the money that is allocated by DOE to give their employees step
increases/cost-of-living raises has gone?

Eve Buckley Dave, district school families & staff have little faith that you support
our schools, and this bill appears to confirm that suspicion. In WEIC's charter-district
collaboration committee, we have talked many times about the importance of equal
treatment before the law in order for charter and other public schools to be inclined
toward collaboration. Collaboration, in administration, transportation, programming
& best-practice sharing, would bring much-needed efficiencies to DE's fragmented
public school landscape. But it will not happen voluntarily if school staff feel that
there are more and less favored public schools. Wherever possible, state policies
should be made uniform across public schools to reduce the strong perception that
general district schools are the poor stepchildren in our educational landscape,
intended for kids who are less desired by selective schools. This perception, which is
not baseless, has to be overcome if we want our publicly funded schools to work
effectively together in the taxpayers' interest. Whichever audit policy best
safeguards public money should apply equally to ALL public schools.

Jill Shilling "Families have little faith that you support our schools" is an
understatement! LOL

Eve Buckley I was trying to be semi-polite! But yes, it's a gross understatement.
smile emoticon

Jill Shilling Kudos to you for being polite. I just get so fed up with these antics!

Kim Casey Williams Here is a photo of some of the items purchased by a former
charter school leader, this is all public information.

Kim Casey Williams

Kim Casey Williams

Kim Casey Williams The below table outlines the various categories of personal
purchases for the former leader of Academy of Dover.

Natalie Alvini Ganc LOL! "Dog House"

Devon Hynson 'Household Items'

Kim Casey Williams http://auditor.delaware.gov/.../Academy%20of%20Dover...

Eve Buckley I view these expenditures from the perspective of a parent and
taxpayer whose home (& children's) district sends $20 million annually (20%) of
local funds to non-district public schools, including many charters. In order to meet
this state-imposed financial obligation without added taxpayer support, our middle
& high schools have had to cut all librarians and many other staff (including MS
language teachers). These cuts are not yet suffered by some local charters, in part
b/c a number of those schools do not face the social service needs that our district
schools do, since their student populations include remarkably few low-income and
ELL kids relative to the actual student population. It adds insult to injury when, in
ADDITION to the existing injustices, our elected officials refuse to ensure that the
monies siphoned from district kids are at least being used for public education.
Kim's bill (186) would do that, and she has a strong record of supporting all public
schools. Sen.Sokola's disdain for his juridiction's local school district is, sadly, well
documented. It is hard for a Christina advocate to find him credible in any matter
pitting charter school interests against those of other public Ed. sectors (those
representing the majority of families' and taxpayers' interests in the area he
serves).

Kim Casey Williams When you hire businesses that work for an individual charter
school leader, do you honestly think they are going to come back in an audit report
and tell the person who hired them who pays their salary "hey we found out who
stealing the money and its you!" This is why the Auditor of Accounts is a separate
elected office because they are involved in all our state agencies and not obligated
to anyone but the taxpayers.

Eve Buckley Public accountability 101!

John Kowalko III Excellent point. That is probably why no other state-funded body is
permitted to choose its own auditor (Title 29, 2906(c)). Why should we trust
charter schools more and treat them differently than every other body that receives
state money?

Eve Buckley And even if one were to give charters this courtesy initially, why do
that now that we know that trust was misplaced, several times over???? Again,
opposition to HB 186 is anti-taxpayer.

Kim Casey Williams I cannot imagine any charter parent who would not support
House Bill 186, it protects their charter schools funding.

Eve Buckley Kim Casey Williams that is an excellent point. The CSN is not a DE
constituency. Charter administrators, who may balk at this accountability req.,
aren't necessarily DE residents themselves (cf Greg Meece who wisely moved over
the PA border when his large charter began devaluing Newark-area public schools;
the PA district he resides in supports fully public schools admirably!) What CSN
wants is irrelevant to any responsible DE representative.

John Kowalko III Senator Sokola, you stated that the audits of charter schools
"should also be high quality audits in the first place, by top notch entities who have
experience in education." However, your bill does little to achieve this result, and
contains absolutely no language that addresses "experience in education" (which is
presumably a phrase you put in to suggest that the state auditor does not have the
adequate experience, a preposterous sentiment that is not supported by any
understanding of generally acceptable auditing standards).
We presumably require high quality audits of all state agencies and other state
bodies using taxpayer money. That is why Title 29, 1504 requires audits of "the
business and financial transactions, records, and accounts of the Department of
Education, the State Board of Education, the Delaware Center for Education
Technology, the Delaware Advisory Council for Career and Vocational Education, and
the boards of education of the school districts."

Rep. William's HB 186 would simply put charter schools into the same auditing
process to which all other state bodies are subject. (Your claims regarding the word
"all" in front of "financial transactions" in HB 186 are a red herring about which you
should know better than to make disingenuous statements.) HB 186 is a simple bill
that changes only three sentences in the Code, and merely puts charter schools into
the same position as all the other schools receiving taxpayer money in the state.
However, your claim is that charter schools should be treated differently. Although
we require public school districts to be audited by the state auditor (and bear that
cost), we should not require charter schools do be treated in that same manner.
Your bill allows charter schools to continue to lack adequate public oversight.
Your big claim is that the following four lines will be adequate to replace the
standard audit of the state auditor with an audit by a private contractor chosen by
the school being audited:
(1) That the auditor shall, at all times during the term of the contract, hold a valid
certified public accountant permit to practice license in Delaware.
(2) That the auditor shall be peer-reviewed by the American Institute of Certified
Public Accountants (AICPA) at least every 3 years, and the most recent review shall
have been completed with an unqualified opinion.
(3) That the audit shall meet the requirements and standards of generally-accepted
government auditing standards.
(4) That the audit required by subsection (d) of this section shall include any
additional specific audit procedures which have been established in advance by the
charter school or the State Auditor, or both, and which apply to the specific charter
school or which the State Auditor has established for all school districts and charter
schools.
First, please note that nowhere does your bill require "experience in education."
More importantly, how are these four conditions adequate to prevent the criminal
actions that have been seen at multiple charter schools? Would the auditors
(chosen by the charter schools) who failed to uncover the criminal actions at the
schools have been disqualified by these requirements? My understanding is that
these requirements would do absolutely nothing to have prevented those criminal
abuses. So how is your bill going to change anything?
In addition, your bill fails to bring charter schools under many of the other financial
requirements that apply to all other state-funded bodies, including Title 14,
1504(b)-(f), 1505, and 1507, which include provisions relating to authorized
positions, reporting over expenditures, reimbursement of funds, and maintenance of
records. (Even in 1508, ordinary taxpayers are not permitted to be on charter
school citizen budget oversight committees. For public school districts, any taxpayer

can be on the committee, but for charter schools, only parents and educators at the
charter school can be on it. Why is this unequal?).
Your bill would also exclude charter schools from many of the provisions in Title 29,
Chapter 29, which defines the authority and responsibilities of the state auditor. In
particular, 2906(c) requires that the state auditor has to select the CPA (rather
than in your bill, which continues to allow charter schools to select their own CPA,
despite being banned for all other state agencies"The Auditor of Accounts shall
have sole responsibility for the arrangements under which the agency post audits
shall be conducted and for the selection of certified public accountants who shall
make the post audits. No other state agency or member, official or employee
thereof shall have any part in, or responsibility for, the selection of the certified
public accountants, nor shall they make any arrangements, agreements or contracts
for the employment of the certified public accountants for the purpose of making
agency post audits."). 2906(h) requires that the audit results are sent to "the local
board, the State Board of Education, the office of Controller General and the local
libraries within said school district" (while your bill would only send them to "the
Department of Education, the State Auditor, the Division of Accounting, and the
citizen budget oversight committee").
Your bill also does not require that charter schools must abide by 2907(a), 2909,
and 2910, which provide, among other provisions that:
2907(a) The audits shall be sufficiently comprehensive to provide, but not limited
to, assurance that reasonable efforts have been made to collect all moneys due the
State, that all moneys collected or received by any employee or official have been
deposited to the credit of the State and that all expenditures have been legal and
proper and made only for the purposes contemplated in the funding acts or other
pertinent regulations.
2909(a) The Auditor of Accounts shall file written reports covering the Auditor's
post audits with the state agency concerned, the Governor, the General Assembly,
the Attorney General and the Director of the Office of Management and Budget;
and, if the Auditor deems necessary, the Auditor may present special reports to the
General Assembly for consideration and action.
2910(a) In connection with other powers of the Auditor of Accounts, the Auditor
shall have the power to administer oaths and compel the attendance of witnesses
and the production of documents by the filing of a praecipe for a subpoena with the
Prothonotary of any county of this State.
Finally, your bill specifically removes the requirement for charter schools to keep all
their audits publicly available. Instead, your bill would require that for only 5 years
(by removing "each previous fiscal year of operation" and replacing it with "the 5
prior fiscal years of operation").
I could also go into the numerous ways that your bill specially avoids "consistency

and cross-reference of terms" (as a stated intent in the synopsis), but since the
synopsis has no legal implications at all, I am more interested in your attempt to
enable charter schools to avoid adequate public oversight by failing to enact any
meaningful provisions in the actual laws of our State. Specifically,
(1) How will your four new requirements change the situation for charters if those
requirements would have done nothing to prevent the criminal abuses at charter
schools such as Family Foundations?
(2) If private audits by self-selected CPA are adequate for charter schools, then why
are they not for public schools? Do you plan to introduce a bill lessening the
auditing requirements for public school districts so that they are on the same
footing as charter schools?
(3) If charter schools (and presumably public school districts) do not need to be
subject to all the auditing requirements in Chapter 29 of Title 29, then why do we
make those requirements for other state agencies?

John Kowalko III For reference:

Title 14, Chapter 15: Free Public Schools, Fiscal Provisions
http://delcode.delaware.gov/title14/c015/index.shtml...See More

John Kowalko III I also would respectfully request, since you are my own State
Senator, why you chose to introduce a bill intended to replace a fellow Democratic
colleague's bill without consulting your fellow Democrat at all? Even worse, you
betrayed a fellow Democrat, whose bill is sponsored by 17 Democrats, to replace it
with your own bill that is sponsored by 7 Republicans and only 3 Democrats
(including yourself, and two others who cannot be consider Democrats on issues of
education). That is a deeply inconsiderate move, which seems intended to do little
more than insulate charter schools from public accountability.

Jill Shilling That's what I don't get as a "commoner", why they keep turning down
good bills instead of working together. They are wasting everyone's time and our
taxpayers money with those antics. It has to be an ego thing. It's disgusting.

John Kowalko III Also, I forgot to point out that the statement that HB 186's title was
"too narrow" to allow it to be amended with the provisions in SB 171 is false.
And it still does not excuse betraying a fellow Democrat to side with Republicans in
protecting charter schools from having the same oversight as every other state
funded body.

Kevin Ohlandt I really hate working on Sundays. I always miss the good stuff. Do I
have everyone's permission (aside from publicly elected legislators) to post this on
Exceptional Delaware?

Eve Buckley You have mine.

Mike Matthews Yep.

John Kowalko III Of course.

Matthew Lindell Go for it!

Natalie Alvini Ganc Yes!

Susan Williams Thank you Kevin. I can not cut and paste, so it would be great to
have it on the Exc. De website to refer to.

Kevin Ohlandt Senator Sokola, you referenced Title 29 as not giving authority for "all
expenses". I humbly disagree: 2907 Scope of audits.
(a) The audits shall be sufficiently comprehensive to provide, but not limited to,
assurance that reasonable efforts have been made to collect all moneys due the

State, that all moneys collected or received by any employee or official have been
deposited to the credit of the State and that all expenditures have been legal and
proper and made only for the purposes contemplated in the funding acts or other
pertinent regulations.

Kevin Ohlandt Jill Shilling Natalie Alvini Ganc Matthew Lindell Mike Matthews John
Kowalko III Do I have permission or would you want your name taken out?

Jill Shilling If you are referring to my post on this thread, absolutely. I realize
everything on FB is public.

Natalie Alvini Ganc Permission granted

Kevin Ohlandt John M. Young

John M. Young Of course

John Thompson Well I've learned a lot by reading this thread. Most importantly, that
it's very difficult to define what (D) means next to a candidate, when it comes to
education.

Susan Williams It's great to read dialogue like this about an issue. Thank you David
Sokola and Kim Casey Williams as well as the others that are not our elected
officials. Susan Meany Williams

Devon Hynson Senator it sounded like your issue is the quality of the audit being
performed. Which I would have to agree is critical. Whereas as Representative
Williams is focused on assuring there are mandatory audit provisions in place for

charters, consistent with traditional and vo-tech public schools. Let me ask what
may have already been addressed; why not do both? On another note I am
concerned that the apprehensions and ideas of the charter network were the
foundations of your bill. Was there any community input or conversation? I'm new to
the thread so forgive me if this was already discussed

John Kowalko III I also forgot to ask (since I was focusing more on the actual legal
implications of SB 171), why did you have the bill written to include with a blatant
lie?
"WHEREAS, 513(c) of Title 14 requires the State Auditor to annually audit charter
schools on the same basis as regular school districts"
If this was so, then none of this would be an issue. Are you going to introduce a
substitute bill to remove this lie?

Kevin Ohlandt Why did Senator Sokola erase all his comments on this?

Mike Matthews Looks like he must have blocked you, my friend!

Kevin Ohlandt Disappointing. I thought it was a really good engagement on the

issues. I figured the more eyes looking at it the more conducive it would be to
getting a solution on it. Bottom line, we can't have more FFA or Acad. of Dover
situations. It's not healthy for education overall. Personally, I would love to see
some convictions and trials coming out of these at some point. I'm pretty sure if I
did that at my job, it wouldn't even be a question. But I will trust Matt Denn on that
one. I did my own "investigation" into FFA before I even knew the auditor was on it. I
found a lot of stuff that wound up in their final report. How could their own private
contractor, actually two since they switched auditors btwn 2013 and 2014, not have
found any of that? And AoD's auditor found something in the 3rd audit after three
years of their head doing his thing. Although I don't really know how much of that is
absolutely true as someone else was talking about it on a fake AoD page way before
that based on the timeline they gave the DOE. Wagner's office would know what to
look for whereas the audit the charters use doesn't even have close to the scope
needed. Just my two cents...

John Kowalko III Wait, Sokola seriously blocked you, Kevin? For what?

Susan Williams My feed was shortened for a while, then widened, so it may just be a
glitch.

Kevin Ohlandt Mine was too, but I can see everything again.