Epic Ordered To Pay State Treasury Over $11.2 Million After Recent Audit

The state auditor’s office went chapter by chapter through their audit of EPIC Charter schools in front of the Board of Education.

Some board members said they were shocked by what they learned.

“This is not okay this is not normal, and I think it requires action of this board and body,” said Carlisha Williams Bradley, a member of the State Board of Education.

They ended up taking action after being in executive session for some time. The board passed a motion to demand that Epic One-On-One and Epic blended charter schools return $11,235,919 to the state treasury as required by statute within 60 days of receiving the supporting documentation from the state auditor's office.

“It is by law our responsibility to do something here in this setting,” said Williams Bradley.

Moving forward from here the attorney general's office appointed Melissa McLawhorn Houston as special counsel to review the audit.

The attorney general deeming the move necessary with various members of the AG's office being involved in several investigations into Epic and their continued role in ongoing litigation into Epic's financial records.

Epic officials did respond to what happened in the meeting, sending the following statement:

"It's no secret we dispute some of the SAI's material findings and have requested through an open records request its work papers to review their calculations so we can go beyond our initial audit response to exercise our due process and debunk these calculations.

EPIC is not perfect. No school is. But the dedication of EPIC's 2,100 employees working here to get things right and improve our processes is. We know more than 60,000 students and their families are counting on us to work with the State Department of Education to resolve issues and we will not let them down,” Bart Banfield, EPIC Superintendent.