By JULIE CARR SMYTH, Associated Press, and staff
COLUMBUS (AP) — The state auditor says Ohio’s then-largest online charter school inflated the amount of time students spent learning by failing to deduct the time students were inactive online.
Software ECOT installed on student computers ‘is the smoking gun’ showing the online school cheated taxpayers, says @ohioauditor Yost. Matter referred to federal & county prosecutors for poss. criminal prosecution. pic.twitter.com/4MgyyfGect
— Ohio Auditor Keith Faber (@OhioAuditor) May 10, 2018
An audit released by Republican Auditor Dave Yost Thursday also said the Electronic Classroom of Tomorrow didn’t document whether students were learning during times the company claimed for payment.
Yost says by misleading state regulators by withholding information the company may have broken the law. He referred his findings to state and federal prosecutors for review.
“Our auditors documented that ECOT officials had the ability to provide honest, accurate information to the state and they chose not to,” Yost said. “By withholding information, ECOT misled state regulators at the Department of Education, and ECOT was paid based on that information. I believe this may rise to a criminal act.”
Yost cited as an example a case in which ECOT’s data-tracking software reported that a student spent 8,857.89 hours on computers and websites associated with learning in one year while there are only 8,760 hours in a year.
The audit also said private affiliates should repay $250,000 in taxpayer money it used for television ads attacking a state effort to recoup millions of dollars in state funding due to overstated attendance figures.
A message was left with an attorney representing ECOT.
Yost also blasted the state Department of Education for insufficient oversight.
“The Department of Education did not require proof that the students were engaged in learning, and ECOT was more than happy to oblige in providing watered-down information that the Department inexplicably accepted, even though they knew more-detailed information was available,” he said.
RELATED: Dept. of Education responds to Yost’s accusation
The school is challenging how the state tallied student participation to determine the e-school should repay nearly $80 million in public funding.