Oklahoma Lawmakers To Consider Action After Epic Charter Schools Audit

Two Oklahoma House committees will hear testimony from State Auditor Cindy Byrd this month after her office released the first part of its audit of Epic Charter Schools. News 9's Barry Mangold has the story.

Monday, October 12th 2020, 10:23 pm



Two Oklahoma House committees will hear testimony from State Auditor Cindy Byrd this month after her office released the first part of its audit of Epic Charter Schools. 

“I think, naturally, everyone is concerned,” said Rhonda Baker, R- Yukon, the chair of the Common Education Committee. Baker said it’s too soon to tell what ideas for legislation may come from the meeting set for Oct. 21 

“We want to make sure that every district is handling their funding properly,” Baker said. 

The Budget & Appropriations Subcommittee on Education, chaired by Republican Rep. Mark McBride of Yukon, will also attend the meeting. 

“This is not about the Epic teachers or the students, or anything like this,” McBride said. “This is basically just about: how the money was spent? Is there a problem?” 

The nearly 120-page audit found, in part, millions were wrongly spent on administrators and company operations out-of-state, as well as a general lack of oversight from the school system’s governing board. 

“(The board) did not review any actually transactions and documentation. They didn’t see purchase orders, they didn’t see bank statements,” said Brenda Holt, the director of the audit. “There was not one meeting in five years where all five board members attended. That, to us, is not appropriate oversight for this board.” 

Bret Banfield, Epic’s Superintendent, released a statement on the audit Monday: 

"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." 

The statement followed the State Board of Education’s unanimous decision to demand the school district pay back $11.2 Million highlighted by the audit. 

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

“This is not normal. This is not okay, and I do think that it requires action of this board and body to say that this is not acceptable,” said Board Member Carlisha Bradley. 

In addition to the responses from lawmakers and the State Board of Education, there is an opportunity for a criminal investigation as a result of the audit. 

State Attorney General Mike Hunter announced Monday that he appointed Melissa Houston as special counsel to investigate the report. 

Separately, an inquiry by the Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation into possible enrollment fraud is still open. 

“We’re going to wait until the rest of the investigation is done before we make certain what we’re going to do,” Baker said. 

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