Beyond the Books: Utah charter school may pay back millions in special education money

SALT LAKE CITY (KUTV) — A Utah charter school, American Preparatory Academy, is in the middle of an audit because of school’s special education spending.

When the audit is complete, it is possible APA will have to pay back millions--maybe more--in state and federal special education funds.

School receive special education funding from both federal and state entities to help educate kids with special needs. The money needs to be very specifically accounted for.

This will be the second audit of APA’s special education money by the state.

The first one found “many serious system-wide deficiencies in [APA’s] financial management system." The audit claimed the APA lacked policies and procedures to govern special education money. It also determined the school did a poor job of documenting expenses and teacher duties.

The results state APA failed to put required accounting policies in place and that the school failed to give the state important documents during the audit.

APA pushed back hard against the allegations and hired an attorney to challenge the findings. APA did manage to get a mediation deal worked out the state. For now, the school does not have to pay back any money, but agreed to another audit, which is underway now.

If that audit finds many of the same issues, APA could have to pay back as much as $4 million or more, according to the Utah State Board of Education.

This is the latest high profile charter school accused of misspending state and federal education dollars. American International School of Utah shut down last year after the school misspent hundreds of thousands of special education funds.

The state later demanded the school pay the money back. Unable to so, AISU shuttered. In the last two months, the Utah Military Academy was also accused of not correctly documenting special education money.

The executive director, Matt Throckmorton, resigned in the wake of the money issues, as well as other rule violations.

KUTV's Beyond The Books unit has reported on issues of transparency at APA for years, including a 2018 investigation that showed how the school uses it’s for profit management company to hide how it spends millions in taxpayer dollars.